Fire & Ash
by Montenya of the Fairies
Summary: [On Hiatus] After years of waiting Ash can finally begin his Unovan journey to become a fire-type Champion. But that doesn't mean the path will be easy, or even quick. He has a long way ahead of him before he's ready to challenge any of the Elite 4, much less become Champion of a region. Will he make it?
1. Flames of Hope

Ash Ketchum was perched on a tree branch about three meters up from the ground. One of many that littered Unova's acclaimed White Forest, the thick foliage of the tree prevented him from seeing very far in any direction but down. Thankfully, his ears still worked fine, and he grinned as he heard voices approaching the tree, following the path that happened to lead directly underneath the teen's hiding spot.

"All I'm saying is if you want to get access to the tree hollow than you need a recommendation from someone higher up than me. Generally anyone who beats one of the elite four gets one, but—"

The two trainers walked right below Ash's hiding spot, and the thirteen year old grinned. It was _exactly_ who he was looking for: Drayden, the gym leader from Opelucid City. Two hours ago the man had had the gall to laugh in Ash's face when he asked him for an apprenticeship.

While Ash was generally very accepting of being turned down—it happened nearly daily—most of those he asked were at least polite enough not to laugh in his face. But _no_ , _Drayden_ had to be different and point out each and every reason it wasn't possible—he knew he was short alright? But he wasn't a _child_ , no matter what the gym leader said.

Grinning, Ash released his ammo, before dashing to another branch and then another before switching trees. The White Forest had been his home for the last four years: he knew how to get around. As he made his escape Ash couldn't help but laugh—behind him, increasingly further away, he could hear Drayden's and his companion's voices screaming in outrage. Ash had hit them with one of his personal favorites: the nectar from a Gloom. The stuff was sticky and smelly and impossible to wash off completely for weeks and, Ash thought, a perfect revenge prank to someone whose personality stank as much as the nectar.

Ash, finally far away enough that he felt safe, jumped down to the ground. He had traversed about half the length of the White Forest and was now near the edge of the actual forest that was nearest to Nimbasa City. He allowed himself a few more seconds of straining to hear the angry shouts in the distance before turning back to his work: getting his apprenticeship.

He walked towards the gate, scoping out his next potential master. Ash wasn't very picky—anyone who would let him start his Pokemon journey early was good in his books.

Contrary to what most of the trainers who frequented the White Forest thought, he was actually able to start his Pokemon journey at 13. It was simply that most waited until they were 15. Ash didn't want to wait. He had been trying to start his journey since he and his mother moved to Unova, and truthfully even before then.

But several years before Ash was born all of the regions had decided that the previous usual age to start Pokemon journeys—ten—was too young, and they had all come up with different solutions to that. Ash's birth region, Kanto, as well as Sinnoh and Johto, had moved the age up to fifteen and regulated the entire process more. Unovans did it a bit differently.

In Unova, so long as you had an apprenticeship with someone who had five or more badges than you, you could start at any time. If you did not want or could not get an apprenticeship you could set off as a group at 15 until you had three badges (the minimum for traveling alone), but even if you had three badges if you were under 15 you still had to have an adult with you who had at least five badges to 'keep the youngsters safe'.

Most chose to simply wait until they were fifteen, then begin their journey with a few choice friends. Ash did not want to be one of those people.

So far the only people who'd come into the Forest obviously didn't have five or more badges. Two teens, madly in love, leaned into one another, staring dreamily in each other's eyes as they staggered past the gate. A boy was dragged through by his mother, who was screaming something about him needing to spend time outdoors. A merchant drove his motorcycle through the gate to deposit a new load of what looked like evolution stones at one of the stores. Ash was by this point nearly on the gate, and getting an evil eye from the guard there—he'd tried to sneak out without an adult before, and she'd been the one who'd had to chase him down the last three times.

Just as he was about to abandon his post in response to his grumbling stomach, a new man ambled through the gate.

Obviously getting on in age, he had a sort of vacant expression which did not speak well to his intelligence. What kept Ash from dismissing him, however, was the man's belt: there, on either side of the buckle, were not one, not two, but twelve pokeballs, of all different sizes and colors. The man gazed about the Forest for a few seconds before turning to a patch of grass at his right. He pulled out a machine and fiddled around with it a bit, obviously comfortable where he was.

The man was obviously not very bright, but it was equally clear that he had at least some badges. Should Ash ask? Or was the man not worth the effort? 

Ash stepped forward.

"Um… Hi? Hello?" Ash asked, trying to get a sense of the man's awareness.

"Hello, young man." The man responded immediately, still fiddling with the device.

"Well, I'm Ash, and—"

"My name's Baoba. That's an interesting name. 'Ash'. I don't think I've ever heard it before. I wonder why your parents named you after the remains of a fire." 

"Well your name is weird too!" Ash snapped, before calming himself. He had to remember the goal: get a master, get a Pokemon, battle the Elite Four, become Champion. "Sorry. My name's short for Ashton."

"Well, I suppose Baoba _is_ a weird name. It's familial, so there's not much I can do about that." The man turned and looked at Ash. "Is yours?"

"Familial?" Ash asked, wondering how he had gotten so off track. "I dunno. Look, I was just wondering if you had five or more badges."

"Why, yes. I have eight from Kanto and five from Johto—I got rather bored after that, you see, and simply stopped competing."

 _Bored? Of battling Leagues?!_

"That's great! So will you take me as your apprentice?"

That got Baoba's attention, for all that his expression didn't change. "What?!"

"You know, apprentice. So that I can start my journey early. I'm thirteen now, I think that's plenty old enough, but the government disagrees. But they have an exception, see, where if I am in an apprenticeship then I'm allowed to travel around with my master and compete in gyms while I do. So will you?"

"I don't even know if I'm staying in Unova yet!" Baoba said.

"I'll make it worth your time! I don't really have any money, but I can cook okay, and I will run errands and stuff, and I—I just _really, really_ want to go on a Pokemon journey."

"Why?"

"To be a Pokemon Champion!"

Baoba laughed. Ash scowled and turned to storm off, already thinking of his Gloom nectar revenge.

"Wait! I just meant that that's a bit of a lofty goal." The man said.

"Well, I can do it! Just you watch!" Ash shouted back.

"Got a bit of a temper, do you?" Baoba smiled. "Have you ever thought about just sitting back and taking things slower? Not everything's a battle, you know?"

"I know that!" Ash retorted, but judging by Baoba unfading smile the man didn't believe him. "I do!"

"Do you want to know what I do for a living?" Baoba asked. Ash blinked at the non sequitur, before shrugging and nodding. "I own Safari Zones. Have you heard of them?"

Ash racked his brain, trying to remember, before finally drudging up an old memory. "Isn't there one in Kanto? I used to live there, and I heard something about a change of ownership?"

"Yes, I decided to start a new one overseas and left the old one in the hands of my good friend Kaiser. He's a lot like you, you know. Always a little riled up. Regardless, the point of Safari Zones is to preserve the rare populations of a region while also giving trainers a chance at getting their hands on them. I did this by banning battling inside the—"

"What?! How could you do that?!"

"You can still catch Pokemon!" Baoba laughed. "You just have to convince them to come with you somehow." At that Baoba paused, and looked at Ash unblinkingly for a few seconds (it was very off putting), before speaking again. "Tell you what, I have a couple Pokemon from my last Safari Zone in some of these pokeballs, and if you convince one to follow you—without battling—then I'll take you as my apprentice for as long as I'm in Unova."

"You've got yourself a deal!" Ash grinned, jubilant over finally getting an apprenticeship. Well, after one last test.

Unfortunately, as it was nearing dinner time, Baoba refused to perform the test immediately, so Ash invited him over in the hopes that the test could be done right after.

Ash's leg was jiggling hard enough to rattle the dinner table. While his mother had been… surprised… to learn that they had an unexpected dinner guest, she welcomed Baoba with open arms and they were now in a deep discussion over the Ketchum's move from Kanto to Unova. Four years ago Ash's mom had gotten a lucrative job offer as a store manager, so the small had packed everything up and relocated to the White Forest. Baoba was most interested in whether she thought a Safari Zone was viable in Unova compared to Kanto, but they segued into many other topics too—apparently Ash's name wasn't familial, his mom just thought it sounded nice.

Ash had tuned out of the conversation ages ago, and had scarfed down his meal in minutes, so now he just sat there, becoming increasingly agitated that he couldn't get to the test already. By now he was certain that both Baoba and his mom were purposefully making this take longer than it should just to irritate him.

Finally Baoba wiped his mouth and moved to stand.

"Thank you for the wonderful meal, Delia. You truly are a great cook, but I think young Ash may explode if we don't get to the test."

Ash's mom laughed. "I am sure you're right." She turned to her son. "Good luck Ash, and remember to thank Baoba no matter what happens."

"I know!" Ash whined, before sprinting to the door. "Let's go!"

Another two minutes found Ash and Baoba standing on an unfrequented path, relatively clear of any tall grass. Baoba fiddled with his pokeballs, before grabbing a couple from his belt. He released all of them at once, and immediately three Pokemon materialized.

"I got these from Johto." Baoba said conversationally. "The one on the left is a Totodile, the middle one a Cyndaquil, and the one on the right a Chikorita. All three are extremely rare in the wild."

Ash stared in awe. He was surrounded by Pokemon every day—a side effect of living in White Forest—but one of these would (hopefully) be his first Pokemon. While he would be ecstatic for any of them, the one in the middle—an obvious fire type—was Ash's #1 choice. Fire types were, after all, the best.

"Hey there, little guy." He said, inching up to the Cyndaquil. It inched away, scared and darted behind Baoba. "Wait!" Ash shouted and ran to catch up with him, but the Cyndaquil immediately darted away. It skittered up one path and down another, and tried to lose Ash in every conceivable way as the young teen sprinted behind him, desperate to prove that he could own a Pokemon.

Ash scraped his knees as he leapt over a bush just in time to see the Cyndaquil skitter into a copse of pine trees. He dove under the branches only to see a small flame escaping out the other side, immediately out of sight. He finally caught sight of Cyndaquil two minutes later in an oak grove only to immediately lose sight of the fire type again as it fled into a patch of tall grass.

An hour passed in that fashion, with Pokemon and human flying from one end of the White Forest to the other and back again, before Ash finally admitted defeat. He'd lost track of Cyndaquil a full five minutes ago, unable to keep pace with the fire type, and now sat slumped against a tree. He took a deep breath and tried not to cry.

"I'm sorry for scaring you, Cyndaquil. I just wanted you to be my partner. I want to be a champion, the best of the best, that specializes in fire types because they're the best too, and… well, no one's really given me a chance. They all take one look at me and think 'oh, he'll never be champion.' So when Baoba did give me a chance I was… really, really excited, and he said if I could make you or one of the other two Pokemon like me then I could be a trainer. And I really wanted to be partners with you, so when you ran I chased you. I was so sure I could catch you and make you my Pokemon that I didn't even think if you wanted to." Ash's head fell in his hands and his voice faded to a whisper. "I guess I failed the test."

He sat, unmoving, for almost a full minute before he felt something brush against his leg. It chirped and Ash looked up.

"Cyndaquil?" There, just to the left of his left leg, sat the little fire type. It chirped again and then climbed clumsily into Ash's lap. "You mean—you mean you'll be my Pokemon?!" Ash shouted. The Cyndaquil nodded, before snuggling deeper against Ash, obviously worn out from the long chase. Careful not to jostle the young first evolution too much, Ash got up and started sprinting back to where he'd last seen the Safari Zone owner.

"Baoba! Baoba! I did it!"


	2. Where there's Smoke

It took a week for Baoba and Ash to leave the White Forest. Baoba wanted to continue to investigate the local flora and fauna (the White Forest being by far the most diverse in species in all of Unova) and talk to various Unovans about their feelings on a Safari Zone, and Ash's mom wanted sufficient time to say goodbye; after all, despite what Ash may have wanted, his mother was more than happy to have him stay at home for a few more years.

But finally, finally, Baoba and his apprentice left through the very door the man had come out of all those days ago. And less than a day later, on bikes, they arrived at their destination.

"But this—this is right next door! We haven't even made it to the next town!" Ash complained as he chained up his bike (a birthday present from the year before) and trudged past the fence that blocked the Lostlorn Forest off from Route 16.

"You wanted to be my apprentice. Well, in this case being my apprentice means going to the Lostlorn Forest. Unless you'd like to go back to the White Forest?" Baoba asked, fiddling with what Ash had learned was a Pokedex, albeit one with many more features than the model handed out to aspiring 15 year-old Pokemon Trainers for free.

"No! No, I guess it's fine." Ash sighed. When he'd imagined becoming someone's apprentice he'd always thought that they'd travel to far off lands and battle gyms daily, amazing the entirety of the region with Ash's natural skill and allowing him to become champion within months. Not… visit an unpopular forest that most trainers skipped as they raced to Victory Road.

"Good! Now, I'd like you to take this Pokedex—I have two— and catalogue as many Pokemon as possible. This will also be a good time for you to begin training your Cyndaquil. There's a great many grass and bug types in the Lostlorn Forest, you know." Baoba grinned as his last sentences caught Ash's attention.

"Then let's go!" The young teen said, dashing forward with Cyndaquil on his heels.

Before long they were in the forest proper and Ash and Cyndaquil were trying to power through as many battles as possible. While it was a bit difficult as the wild Pokemon were definitely at a higher level than Cyndaquil and the only attack moves the fire Pokemon knew were Tackle, Ember, and Quick Attack, the type advantage was good enough that they were still managing to trample through the forest at a reasonable pace, for all that they had to regularly stop at the random berry patches throughout the forest to keep Cyndaquil going strong.

After only an hour in the forest Ash and Cyndaquil, working together, had fought and defeated Cottonee, Petilil, Roselia, Combee, and an extremely difficult Pinsir.

"Great job, Cyndaquil!" Ash said as he hugged his partner, high off of yet another victory. "Let's find our next opponent!" Cyndaquil chirped in agreement and the two began to look around. "There!" Ash shouted. Pointing to a reddish-green Pokemon a few meters away. It was inching towards a music player Baoba had left out—apparently a number of Pokemon were attracted to music, and the Safari Zone owner had asked Ash to keep track of which Pokemon were obviously attracted to the player. Honestly, though, Ash cared much more about the prospect of attracting battles then the inner workings of Pokemon. Nevertheless, as the trainer and Pokemon approached the mystery Pokemon, Ash pulled out his Pokedex and made a note of its response to music as he aimed it at the creature.

"This Pokemon is a Venipede. It is a Bug and Poison type. It uses its feelers to read vibrations in the air and determine both its predators' and prey's location and state."

"Nice. Cyndaquil, Ember!" The Fire Mouse lunged forward, firing a small flame at his opponent. The Venipede reared back, annoyed, and spat some purple gunk at Cyndaquil. While at first the tiny fire Pokemon seemed fine after a second or two he suddenly tensed up in pain, whimpering slightly despite no visible injury.

"Cyndaquil?" Ash shouted from a safe distance away. At the same time the Venipede reared back for another attack. "Ember again!" Ash shouted, putting his Pokemon's strange behavior out of his mind for the time being. It took another Ember, but the Venipede finally went down. Unfortunately, Cyndaquil was still acting oddly. Ash picked up his Pokemon, scared that something had gone horribly wrong, and sprinted towards the back of the forest that he knew Baoba was exploring.

"Baoba! Baoba! Cyndaquil's been hurt!"

By the time Ash finally managed to track to track the elusive man down Cyndaquil was coughing and sweating and looked like he would faint any minute.

"Baoba! Cyndaquil's sick!"

"What's the—? Oh, I see. Well, not to worry." The Safari Zone owner rummaged through his pack, muttering as he did so. "I really should have given these to you earlier… where are—? Aha!" He pulled out a purple and yellow spray bottle, before holding each up to Cyndaquil's mouth in turn. "Not to worry, Ash. Your Cyndaquil was just poisoned. I really should have given you some antidotes and potions to start off with." He rummaged through his bag again and pulled out two of each. "Here you are! Next time use the Pokedex's Status feature to diagnose Cyndaquil—I paid extra for it, you know." Baoba then showed Ash how to access the screen, as well as the actual signs to watch out for. Once he was sure Ash got it, he turned back to his own work—he seemed to be trying to set up some cameras in the area.

Despite Baoba's unconcerned response, however, all Ash could think about was how helpless he had been to Cyndaquil's suffering—he'd, after all, been the one who had run through the forest twitching in pain again and again just because Ash hadn't realized what was going on.

"I'm really sorry Cyndaquil. I had no idea what was wrong and I should have. I've seen the signs often enough while watching battles on TV. I just—I froze. I'm really sorry." Ash said as he and Cyndaquil walked back to the front of the forest. He felt like an idiot—Champions didn't make mistakes like that—they always knew how their Pokemon were doing, and were never caught unaware. But as Ash continued to question whether or not the White Forest's visitors—Drayden included—were right, Cyndaquil looked up at him and chirped reassuringly, rubbing against his leg as he scrambled along. Ash shook his head, reminding himself that everyone made a mistake or two, and it couldn't be that big a deal, before petting Cyndaquil reassuringly. After one last promise to realize sooner next time, the two went back to work. As they made their way through the forest, however, Ash noticed something odd.

After every battle Cyndaquil would tense for a few seconds before relaxing again. Ash was tempted to run back to Baoba, but Cyndaquil didn't want to, so they continued on, though Ash kept it in his mind to ask Baoba about later—the Pokedex had not registered a status effect, and the odd behavior worried the young teen.

Around mid-afternoon they decided to begin targeting Pokemon that weren't necessarily weak to Cyndaquil's Ember. Their first target was a Watchog that seemed to be guarding a number of other, younger, Pokemon.

"Cool! A new opponent!" Ash said, sprinting towards the normal type as he pulled out the Pokedex, registering the time and place the new Pokemon had been spotted. Cyndaquil followed behind him, albeit more reluctantly than normal.

"Ember, Cyndaquil!" Ash shouted the second the fire type was near enough. Opposite them the Watchog tensed, but took the attack without retaliating. "Ember again!" Cyndaquil seemed even more reluctant now, but did as he was told. Again the opposing Pokemon took the attack calmly. Then, just as Cyndaquil was about to release another Ember the Watchog pounced, flaring wildly as it slammed directly into Cyndaquil. The fire-type didn't have a chance—it twitched, then lay still.

"Cyndaquil!" Ash shouted, recklessly running forward to gather the fire mouse in his arms. Thankfully the Watchog did not seem inclined to attack the young teen, so Ash took off to the campsite.

Once there he desperately tried to wake the fainted Pokemon up, but Cyndquil showed no signs of stirring. Ash's leg jiggled as he thought about what to do. He knew Baoba told him that if Cyndaquil ever fainted he was supposed to stay at the campsite until the Safari Zone owner returned, but this was an emergency! Finally Ash made a decision. He returned his partner to his Pokeball and sped out of the camp, darting through the brush towards the back of the forest where Baoba was working.

It took a while, scraping against more than a few branches in his haste, and fleeing from three separate aggressive Pokemon, but he finally managed to track down Baoba gazing through some particularly dense trees towards the end of Lostlorn forest proper. "Baoba!"

"Ash?" Baoba said, turning around. "Did you run out of antidotes?"

"No! Cyndaquil fainted!" Ash wheezed, out of breath from the running.

"What?! I thought I told you to stay at the campsite if that happened! You shouldn't go running around without a Pokemon that can fight, Ash."

"Lecture me later! Fix Cyndaquil now!" Ash shouted. Baoba pursed his lips but pulled out a revive and fed it to the unconscious Pokemon.

"This should heal him enough to get you back to the camp." Baoba said, before turning to look Ash in the eyes. It was not a happy look. "You will stay at camp until I get back. I expect a full written report on what you did wrong, both in the battle and in your actions afterwards—there's a number of books you can use for that purpose—and for Cyndaquil to be fully cleaned and brushed by the time I get back. Then we can begin your punishment—I will not take going through a forest without a capable Pokemon lightly."

"That's not my punishment?!" Ash yelped. It seemed like a punishment to him.

"No."

Finally taking in how serious Baoba was Ash nodded and turned back to camp. He tried to dawdle as long as possible in the forest, but Cyndaquil, still weak but much improved, wouldn't listen and went straight back to camp at (what was to Ash) a very unreasonable pace, obviously less than willing to put up with his trainer's behavior.

As Ash stepped into the site he pulled out his Gameboy, having decided that he had some time before he had to get to work. Just before he could turn it on it was bumped out of his hands.

Below him Cyndaquil sat, glaring at him as much as the tiny Pokemon could. He was clearly not very happy to have gotten in trouble, and less than willing to see Ash shirk his orders.

"I'll get the work done! But I have enough time for one game at least! It's been a tough day, I deserve the relaxation!" Ash argued, leaning down to get the dropped system. Cyndaquil squeaked and headbutted it out of Ash's hands again. "Cyndaquil!" Ash shouted, annoyed. The fire mouse squeaked again, not deterred. Finally Ash groaned. He left the Gameboy on the ground and pulled an "all-in-one" digital textbook and a notebook out of his backpack, before flipping to the first empty page and beginning to write. Every time he began to slack off Cyndaquil hit his head. Every time he tried to stand Cyndaquil used ember just above his head.

"Fine! I'll work!" Ash snapped, annoyed. He turned back to what he'd already done.

 _I shouldn't have run to the back of the forest without a Pokemon. Wild Pokemon will attack humans regardless of whether or not they have a Pokemon with them. I shouldn't have tried to attack the Watchog. It was really strong and…_

And what? There was no way it was strong enough to faint Cyndaquil in one move, but that's what it did. Ash sat back, actually thinking about what had happened.

"I bet… I bet it was the move the Watchog used." Ash muttered, turning to his "Pokemon Moves" textbook and swiping through random pages for Watchog's move list. Ash's haphazard approach meant that it took a while to arrive at the list, but when he finally did it barely took two minutes to figure out what had happened.

"You were hit by a move called 'Bide', Cyndaquil." Ash explained to the fire type sitting next to him. He read the description, explaining what he was reading to Cyndaquil as he did. "The way the move works is the Pokemon using it takes about two attacks, and then it'll use the power of those attacks in combination with its own power to hit back twice as hard. Isn't that cool?"

Cyndaquil chirped, scrambling onto Ash's leg to see the video the young teen had pulled up on his Pokedex showing Bide being done by a Kricketot. It sucked that Cyndaquil had been hit by the move, but it was also a move that Ash could see using against a challenger when he was champion.

After figuring out the move Ash flew through the rest of the essay, even adding that he hadn't considered why the Watchog wasn't attacking back and how to deal with the attack in the future (use status moves for as long as the opposing Pokemon uses Bide or use a Protection move when it goes to release the energy). Finished, Ash gazed down at his paper. It was honestly some of his best work, and he was oddly proud of the effort he had put into it.

But he was on a deadline and there was now less than an hour before Baoba was supposed to return to the campsite, so thirteen year old and fire type alike scrambled to get ready in time. Both quickly bathed in the giant pail of water Baoba had made Ash lug from a stream earlier that day, and after changing into some cleaner clothes Ash began the painstaking process of brushing all of the nettles and clumps and dried poisons out of Cyndaquil's fur. Battling, as it turned out, was messy. Ash barely had time to put everything—including his GameBoy—away before Baoba came into sight.

That night the group dined on soup and bread, and after the meal Baoba read Ash's essay, complimenting him on his improved understanding of what he did wrong, before Ash began the arduous task of copying—by hand—the laws that applied to thirteen year-olds, including that of having to be within five feet of an adult or with a Pokemon and have a parent or master in the 'near vicinity' whenever they left their hometown. The next morning before he was allowed to go back to battling the teen finished his punishment by doing the math involving the cost of a Revive and how long the average person had to work to afford one, as well as what could mimic the effects of a revive (the Pokemon sleeping for ten to twelve hours). By the time he'd been released from the campsite Ash had resolved to keep his Pokemon from fainting ever again.

Well, unless they were near a Pokemon Center—recovering there was free, and Cyndaquil honestly hadn't seemed that hurt after Baoba had taken care of him.

Cyndaquil's odd behavior had, in the wake of the Watchog's attack, faded from Ash's mind, but as he fell asleep the small first evolution lying behind him squirmed, the problem still making itself known.


	3. Fire Break

After the disastrous attempt at attacking a normal type yesterday, Cyndaquil and Ash went back to grass and bug types. They flew through the first couple of battles, soon arriving at the waterfall which poured into the stream cutting through Lostlorn forest. It was really a very pretty sight, but all of Ash's attention was devoted to the large Swadloon that was nestled in the muddy bank of the stream. It seemed to be drawing in the mud, and looked utterly unaware of its surroundings.

"Cyndaquil, Ember!" Ash shouted. They hadn't gone after that particular Pokemon yet, but Ash knew Cyndaquil would take it down no problem. Immediately the Swadloon whipped around and sprayed a sticky substance at Cyndaquil. Cyndaquil was caught in it and frustratedly tried to remove the strings, but he couldn't.

"Ignore the String Shot, Cyndaquil!" Ash shouted. "Ember again!" As Cyndaquil breathed out a small flame Swadloon protected and the fire move bounced harmlessly off the shield. Ash growled, annoyed, before repeating his last order. The Swadloon protected again, and then before Cyndaquil could fire another attack the grass/bug type leapt forward, tackling Cyndaquil. "Ember!" Ash shouted desperately, unable to comprehend how well the 4x weak Pokemon was doing. Cyndaquil lashed out and finally Protect failed and allowed the Swadloon to be hit. One more lucky shot and the leaf-wrapped Pokemon fainted.

"Finally!" Ash shouted gleefully, jumping in the air in excitement. The Swadloon was the first Pokemon to give he and Cyndaquil trouble that day, however little trouble it ended up being. Unfortunately the battle had left Cyndaquil covered in strings, so Ash had to spend, in his mind, way too long cleaning those up before they could move on. The previous day's frustrations already forgotten, it didn't take that long for the difficulty of the battle against Swadloon, too, to be put in the back of Ash's mind: any trouble was a fluke, after all: he and Cyndaquil were going to be champions, and champions didn't lose. (Often.)

As they progressed through the forest, searching out unseen Pokemon, Ash became more and more worried about Cyndaquil. After every battle the fire mouse would wince and freeze for a few seconds before being able to move on, and the Pokegear was unable to detect what was wrong. Finally Ash made the executive decision to head to the back of the forest where Baoba had said he would be working. As much as he was loathe to ask for help again, still however subconsciously resenting the man for yesterday's punishment, this was obviously something that needed attention.

That didn't mean that Ash was willing to stop battling on the way, however. As Pokemon and partner began to press through the denser back woods, one of the first Pokemon Ash and Cyndaquil came across were the 'Elemental Monkeys'. As Ash and Cyndaquil watched Panpour went about a small berry patch in the forest, watering the various blooms, while Pansage collected the ripened berries and Pansear cooked them nearby. Pansear, Ash noted, was a fire Pokemon.

It should be noted at this time that one of the quirks of almost every region's League was that the vast majority of gym leaders, elite four members, and champions all specialized in a certain type. This was in large part because if you specialized then you could become more of an expert and raise the best of the type you were a master of, however many of the more learned scholars were sure that wasn't the sole reason—after all, some of Kanto's most famous Champions, Red and Blue, did not specialize, and they'd never been defeated.

Nonetheless, Ash was not a learned scholar, so when he'd set his sights on being Champion one of the first things he'd done was decide what type to specialize in. The very first type he'd thought of was Dragon, the massively powerful but extremely rare type that many Champions were well known for specializing in. However, Ash knew that it was extremely unlikely that he'd ever be so lucky as to have a dragon type, especially not as his first Pokemon, so he turned to fighting types.

But one of the trainers he'd asked to apprentice with had laughed in his face when he'd mentioned that, and pointed out that basically all fighting type experts worked out as hard if not harder than their Pokemon, often giving up all creature comforts to better focus on training. Ash wasn't sure if he was up to that.

After that he'd settled on fire types. Offensive, powerful, and much more common than dragons, it became Ash's goal to have a team of fully evolved powerhouse fire types.

Unfortunately neither Pansear or its evolution Simisear were well known for their power, but at this point Ash couldn't afford to be picky, and when Baoba had taken him on as an apprentice he'd given Ash two pokeballs for just this kind of occasion.

"Quick Attack on the red one, Cyndaquil!" Ash shouted. Cyndaquil darted forward, obeying flawlessly, before everything went crazy. Apparently the other elemental monkeys were not so happy to have their evolutionary sibling being attacked, so they went after its opponent. The Pansage used Bite on Cyndaquil to keep him from attacking while Panpour shot a blast of water—a Water Gun—straight at Cyndaquil's face. "Cyndaquil!" Ash shouted, alarmed that he'd accidently gotten his Pokemon in a fight with a water type.

Still raw over what happened with the Watchog, Ash deliberated for only a second before pulling out Cyndaquil's pokeball.

"I'm going to return you, okay Cyndaquil?" Ash called out. Cyndaquil, standing squarely between the three monkeys and Ash, shook his head. "What?" Ash shouted. It was three against one—there was no way that Cyndaquil could beat those odds after losing to the Watchog. But Cyndaquil shook his head again before letting off an Ember at the Pansage.

Ash grit his teeth, but if Cyndaquil wanted to battle then they would battle. And anyway, Cyndaquil was probably right—who did these monkeys think they were, attacking the future Champion like they were? "Another Ember on green, then Quick Attack green before Tackling blue!" Ash shouted. Maybe he'd catch his second Pokemon after all. But just as he thought that the battle immediately and suddenly came to an end. In a lucky move by Cyndaquil he'd managed to hit the Pansage with what looked like a critical Ember and the monkey instantly fainted. The second it did its siblings grabbed it and took off, disappearing into the dense foliage on the side of the berry patch. Unfortunately that meant that while the battle was over, so too were Ash's chances of getting his second Pokemon.

"You did it, Cyndaquil!" Ash grabbed his tiny partner and threw him in the air, overjoyed and still hopped up on adrenaline. A quick potion and the fire mouse was back to rights too. "I'm sorry I didn't believe in you. It's just that after you fainted I didn't want you to go through that again. But you're really strong and I should've realized that." The one thing Ash knew for sure from watching competitive battling was that you always supported your Pokemon—Champion Alder even said it was the most important facet of a trainer. Cyndaquil chirped and the Ash hugged his Pokemon tightly again before the two started off once more.

As they continued to walk deeper into the forest the trees began to cluster closer and closer together and sunlight became more sparse. Ash was beginning to have a sinking feeling that Baoba wasn't headed in this direction. Just as he was able to tell Cyndaquil to turn around from where the fire mouse was scouting up ahead the little fire type squeaked, before running back to Ash and trying to headbutt him forward.

"Alright! Alright!" Ash jogged ahead, on the lookout for what had made his partner act that way, when he saw it. There, up ahead, sat a Pokemon right smack in the middle of a patch of sunlight, obviously sweltering. Ash pulled out his Pokedex and scanned the Pokemon as he and Cyndaquil neared it.

"This is a Piloswine, or a Ground/Ice species. It has never been seen this far southeast." The Pokedex informed him.

"You okay, little buddy?" Ash said as he neared the mass of brown fur. It growled at him and shifted back, but remained in the sunlight. Ash quickly rechecked the Pokedex to make sure that Piloswine weren't supposed to enjoy hot weather, but it was very clear that sweltering conditions (i.e. less than freezing) were extremely difficult for the ice/ground type to endure for long periods.

"Here, let me help." Ash said, trying to pick up the brownish mass. It growled again and made to attack. Ash leapt back, afraid, and called out. "Cyndaquil!" His little partner went on attack, firing one Ember after another at the massive Piloswine. Unfortunately its ground typing canceled out its ice type weakness, but Cyndaquil was still able to dodge enough of its attacks that it looked as if the little fire type would win. Just as Ash was ready to cheer on Cyndaquil the Piloswine reared back and launched a giant wave of mud straight at its adversary.

It his straight on.

Cyndaquil whimpered, falling to the side, and Ash cried out, terrified. "Cyndaquil!" His little partner managed to raise his head and stared at Ash for a few seconds, and Ash made a split second decision: he and his Pokemon were fighters, not fleers. "You can do it!" Cyndaquil chirped, determined, and struggled to its feet, deftly dodging the Piloswine's next attack. While Cyndaquil was notably less accurate after the hit, its advantage in speed and comfort in the environment meant that it only took a few more hits for the massive ground/ice type to go down.

Cyndaquil chirped again, elated, and Ash ran up and hugged him, cheering the fire mouse's accomplishments. "You did great, Cyndaquil. That Piloswine was very powerful!" Ash extolled as he brushed clumps of mud away from the fire type's eyes. Cyndaquil chirped affably, obviously proud of itself too.

Unfortunately after the battle the two were just as lost as before, so after a quick potion-up Ash and Cyndaquil went back to searching for any hint of the camp or Baoba.

By the time two hours had passed Ash was frustrated enough that he was stomping around, making no attempt to hide his presence from the local fauna, none of whom seemed remotely interested in battling, which wasn't helping his mood either—Ash found battling to be oddly cathartic, and the lack of fighting was beginning to grate on him nearly as much as being lost.

Just then they rounded a grove of trees, catching sight of the river. A Palpitoad, apparently oblivious to Ash's noise, was sat on the edge of the water, digging merrily into the ground. Ash found himself inexplicably frustrated at the Pokemon's happiness, and before he thought through his actions he spoke. "Cyndaquil, Quick Attack!"

The fire mouse, for his part, seemed more than reluctant to go against the extremely bad type match-up, but reluctantly performed the move as his friend wanted it to. The Palpitoad looked up, annoyed, when he felt Cyndaquil ram into his side, and with barely a thought swept him away with a water-type move before slamming into him with a ground type attack. Cyndaquil squeaked, alarmed, and Ash finally woke up from his bad mood to see his very small Pokemon being loomed over by a much larger, much stronger, much better matched Pokemon who looked ready to destroy the fire mouse for interrupting it. Quickly, before the worst could happen, Ash snatched Cyndaquil's pokeball from his pocket and returned his partner, spinning around and sprinting away the second the fire type was safely ensconced inside. Maybe fleers had the right idea after all.

Ash ran at full speed past brush and scrub, cutting his legs and arms rather badly in his attempt to get away from the close call (honestly at this point he didn't think they'd ever heal), and he didn't stop until he was absolutely sure without a shadow of a doubt that there was no way the Palpitoad had followed them. Gasping, Ash leaned against a tree. He felt light headed and a bit dizzy, and very nauseous from the effort he'd just exerted.

When he'd finally calmed down and downed almost all of his water reserve he released Cyndaquil, pulling the fire type into his arms the second he took shape.

"I'm so sorry, Cyndaquil! I wasn't thinking, and I was frustrated, and I had promised not to do something as stupid as that again and I did! I'm so sorry!" Ash was nearly crying at this point, the feeling that he'd let his Pokemon down nearly overwhelming. It was one thing to fight against a Piloswine that was already weakened—it was quite another to put your Pokemon's life in danger with a bad type match-up against a more powerful opponent. Cuddled into his shoulder the Cyndaquil made comforting chirps, having already forgiven Ash for his mistake, but Ash knew it would be a while until he forgave himself.

To heal the damage from the Palpitoad Ash had to use the last of the potions, and the queasy feeling of anxiety crept up on him again. They'd been looking for hours and still hadn't found Baoba, and Ash was beginning to lose hope. As he sat, trying to think of what to do, Cyndaquil squirmed out of his arms and began sniffing around. He followed a scent to the edge of Ash's sight, before sprinting back and chirping in front of Ash.

"What?" Ash asked, distracted. Cyndaquil chirped again. "You want me to… follow you?" Another chirp, and the two were on their way. Ash didn't exactly understand where they were going, but in front of him Cyndaquil carefully followed an invisible path, not once wavering from the route. Ash tried, repeatedly, to get Cyndaquil to explain what he was doing, but the fire mouse just chirped and continued forward. Just as Ash's legs were about to give out he saw some light shining in from between the leaves and stems. He darted forward, leading now with Cyndaquil following, and crashed into the clearing.

There, in the middle, was the very camp they'd started their day at, with Baoba settled inside, munching on dinner while studying some of his notes.

"Baoba!" Ash shouted, dashing the last few meters to his master.

"Ash? Cyndaquil's alright, isn't he?" Baoba asked, surprised at Ash's exuberance.

"Yes! I mean, No! I mean—"

"All right, all right. How about you sit down and have some food and tell me what happened." Baoba said, moving his stacks of research to the side. Over the next hour Ash rambled on about the day he had, occasionally having to backtrack significantly to add parts he'd left out or only remembered later. He told Baoba about all of his battles, about his idiotic order against the Palpitoad, and about the odd Piloswine, but most importantly he told Baoba about Cyndaquil's odd post-battle behavior.

After Ash was done Baoba hummed thoughtfully and had Cyndaquil hop on the table. He scanned the fire mouse with his Pokegear, ignoring Ash's frustrated griping that he'd already tried that, and then had Cyndaquil complete a number of physical stretches and similar to make sure there wasn't an underlying issue. After that he had Cyndaquil go just outside the camp and show Baoba each of his moves, even the non-attacking ones that Ash never used.

"Well, I think I know what the problem is." Baoba said at last, meandering back into the camp with the same vacant expression as always.

"What?" Ash asked, annoyed at the slow pace his master took in everything.

"He's stopping himself from evolving." Baoba responded, as genially as always.

"What?!"

"Oh, yes. It seems Cyndaquil does not believe that you—or he—is ready for the power of his evolution, so he's holding himself back."

"Is… is that true, Cyndaquil?" Ash asked, suddenly ashamed of himself. He knew he'd made a lot of mistakes, but for his Pokemon to actually think he wasn't ready to deal with an evolved Pokemon… Cyndaquil squeaked in response, nuzzling apologetically into Ash's legs. Ash sat still for a few seconds, trying to decide how to take the news. In all of the time he'd already spent with the little fire mouse, the idea that it still didn't respect him enough was… disappointing and kind of humiliating. Not to mention, no one ever became the Champion with a _first evolution_. Did Cyndaquil really think he was just as weak as everyone else did?

Well, Ash decided, he knew just what to do: he'd prove to Cyndaquil that he had what it took to be a fire type Champion and Cyndaquil would finally realize he was ready. He told Cyndaquil this, promising to improve to the point where the fire mouse would be proud to have him as a master, and Cyndaquil chirped in response, obviously happy with Ash's resolve, but still staunchly a Cyndaquil.

As the two were having their conversation Baoba stood a respectable distance away, gazing outside of camp. There, wandering around the edge of the glen they'd set up the tents in, was an Audino. "Ash!"

"Yeah?" Ash asked, looking up from Cyndaquil.

"You see that Pokemon over there?" Ash nodded, looking at the odd pink and cream creature. "That is an Audino. They're rare, but revered in Unova. Do you know why?" Ash shook his head. He hadn't paid all that much attention to anything which did not directly evolve league battling, and that particular normal type never seemed to appear in competitions much. "When a Pokemon fights them, they seem to get an unnatural amount of experience, performing significantly better after the battle then they ever would have before."

Ash grinned, turning to Cyndaquil to ask him if he wanted a shot, but while master and apprentice talked the fire type had curled up on the ground and fallen asleep. Baoba turned to Ash and smiled.

"Don't worry. I'm sure you will come across one again and actually be prepared to battle the next time." He turned back to the Audino and smiled. "Audino, after all, are said to hear the whispered wishes of trainers who seek to improve, and seek them out all on their own. So long as you continue to try—continue to promise to improve—then you will find an Audino waiting wherever you go." Baoba smiled again, then left Ash staring at the hearing Pokemon as he ducked inside his tent, ready to follow Cyndaquil and his own Pokemon into Morpheus's realm.

Ash stayed out a few minutes longer, watching as the Audino trotted this way and that, simply exploring the surroundings. Nothing about the creature looked remotely special, but then nothing about Ash did either and he would become a Champion, so perhaps it was better that he waited to fight the easy-looking Pokemon. Looks, after all, could be deceiving.


	4. Water vs Fire

"Alright, Ash; now, I know I've given you free range these past two days—"

"Yeah, I promise I'll be responsible!"

"BUT, you need to be back and packed by three, okay? I—"

"I've got it! I've got it!"

Baoba sighed. "I have a bus coming to pick us up, and it'll leave if we're late. So you must be on time."

"I promise! Geez!"

Baoba sighed again, visibly frustrated, before he suddenly paused and looked much more contemplative. Ash narrowed his eyes at the sudden change in expression, but before he could get too worried Baoba sent him off.

It was Ash's final day in the Lostlorn Forest, and he couldn't wait to leave. It had been somewhat interesting, he guessed, to see all the Pokemon that migrated through the Forest to and from the White Forest, and it had been cool to hang out with Cyndaquil, but there was no gym or trainer battles, so it really wasn't the most useful way to spend time.

"Ready to head out?" Ash asked Cyndaquil. His tiny partner chirped, sniffing the ground as they migrated deeper into the forest. "I think we can go for something big today. I mean, apparently you're as strong as a Quilava, and that's only after two days of training! So we need to find a really cool animal to take down to prove how great we are!"

Cyndaquil chirped again, eagerly, and the two sprinted forward.

The first hour or so of traveling was, in the end, rather useless. All the Pokemon he and Cyndaquil saw they'd already fought, or now knew enough to stay away from (the school of Basculin in the river, for instance.)

It was the second where they struck gold.

"Look!" Ash whispered, nodding towards a female Unfezant who had, for whatever reason, decided to rest on the ground rather than a tree. Cyndaquil looked less than sure, but eventually nodded.

"Quick attack then ember!" Ash shouted.

Cyndaquil rushed forwards, slamming into the wild Pokemon and immediately shooting a flame at it. The Unfezant looked completely apathetic.

"Again!"

Again, Cyndaquil rushed forward. Again the Unfezant didn't even look like Cyndaquil had hit her at all.

"AGAIN!"

At last, Unfezant noticed that she was being hit. And as she did Ash finally realized what a bad idea this was. He didn't, off the top of his head, remember exactly how strong an Unfezant was, but it was a final evolution of three. And Cyndaquil was a first revolution. As the possible consequences began to sink in for Ash, the Unfezant let out a gust, blowing Cyndaquil head over heels away from her.

"Okay, okay Cyndaquil. We can do this. Um… Smokescreen! Use Smokescreen and Ember!"

As Cyndaquil began billowing out smoke, Ash looked around him wildly. It had occurred to him that even if trainers weren't allowed to interfere in official battles, wild battles didn't have that same restriction, so if he could just find—

"Ah-ha!" Ash grabbed a rock, then another, as he called out more instructions to Cyndaquil. "Ember! Ember! Ember!"

He then palmed the first rock and, with a quick prayer that his baseball lessons would finally show their worth, threw it straight at the bird.

It hit.

"Ha! Oh sh—ember again Cyndaquil! Quickly!" Ash said, sprinting to the side as the giant Pokemon turned towards him. Thankfully, just before the Unfezant actually bothered to follow him (now that he thought of it, this Unfezant seemed _very_ lazy) Cyndaquil let out both a Quick Attack and an Ember, before letting out another Smokescreen and sprinting away.

The second Unfezant turned towards Cyndaquil, however, Ash threw another rock, which slammed into the wild Pokemon's head just as Cyndaquil let out another ember.

By that point the Unfezant—who had so far only bothered releasing one move—was starting to look more than a little weakened, and, apparently deciding that she didn't like that, she suddenly leapt into the air, soaring out of reach in moments.

Just before she was too far away, though, Ash finally remembered to pull out his pokedex.

"This Pokemon is an Unfezant, a normal and flying type. Males swing their head plumage to threaten opponents, while the females' surpass their male counterparts in flying abilities. This particular specimen is female."

The Unfezant now far out of reach, Ash turned to treating Cyndaquil's injuries while he scanned down the rest of the Pokedex's page on Unfezant. His stomach turned a bit when he learned that they didn't tend to evolve to their final form until they were about as strong as a newly evolved Venusaur. That said, Cyndaquil was in a much different mood.

The small fire type was chirping happily as the potions took effect, hopping around excitedly. Unlike the last couple of times Ash had pitted them up against a Pokemon so far beyond their level, Cyndaquil did not seem remotely scared or unhappy.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" Ash asked, scratching the top of Cyndaquil's head.

The fire mouse squeaked some more, then stared upwards, at the air. Figuring that the Pokedex would give him more clues than Cyndaquil was able to, he turned the device on his partner.

"This Pokemon is a Cyndaquil, a fire type. Typically hunted by Pidgeot, Noctowl, and Fearow, the Pokemon tends to do its best to stay hidden in underground dens until it feels strong enough to begin attacking the flying types in retribution."

"You finally feel strong enough, Cyndaquil?" Ash asked. Cyndaquil squeaked happily. "Well, that's good, because you are strong enough." Ash got up, slipping the pokedex in his pocket as he began to look at the trees of the forest. Cyndaquil followed behind him, chirping in curiosity. Ash glanced back at his little partner. "If you want to fight flying types, then I'm going to find a flying type for you to fight, Cyndaquil. I'm sure there's a couple in the trees who wouldn't mind having a little battle."

By the time they decided to head back for lunch they'd worked together to take out two Tranquill. They weren't as strong as Unfezant, of course, but even Ash knew that ordinarily a Cyndaquil would have no chance against one of the flying types. The two of them, though, were strong enough to knock them out with only a little—or more than a little—effort.

That said, the battles were also exhausting, and both were looking forward to a good midday meal. As they began to exit the tree line in the direction of their campsite, however, something caught Cyndaquil's eye and he chirped, his long nose pointed towards a small dot in the distance.

As the dot neared, it became clear that it was a Pokemon, one that Ash had seen before only once: when watching one of Gym Leader Elesa's battles.

The Emolga flew through the air, gliding near one tree and then another, performing backflips and loop-de-loops and every other acrobatic trick in the book. Ash knew in an instant that there was no way that Cyndaquil was ready to go against an Emolga that large and that blatantly in the open, but that didn't mean that would always be the case.

"Soon we'll be able to beat an Emolga like that, Cyndaquil. And an Unfezant, and a Piloswine, and a Watchog, and any other Pokemon we come up against. We're going to be champions, and no one will be able to stand in our way." Cyndaquil chirped resolutely, and they stood and watched until the playful Emolga disappeared over the skyline.

After lunch Cyndaquil and Ash decided to go through one more quick tour of the forest before packing up. They didn't bother actively seeking battles—there were enough that they stumbled across that they weren't bored, and at the same time…

Three days wasn't that long, obviously. But it felt long—it was certainly the longest Ash had been away from the White Forest since he and his mom had moved to Unova—so Ash wanted to pay his respects, in a way, to the forest that had picked up where the White Forest had left off, teaching both he and his Pokemon valuable skills and allowing them to become much stronger than he ever thought possible in such a short period of time.

So instead of keeping on their battle-craze Ash and Cyndaquil were walking along the river towards the waterfall. Ash figured his mom would want a picture of the "natural wonder", and he could put Cyndaquil in front of it to show how much his little partner had improved.

Just as the waterfall came into sight, however, Ash's head exploded.

He groaned, holding his forehead with both hands as he tried to sit up. The ringing in his ears wouldn't go away, and it felt like a Conkeldurr had just decided that the best place to lay down one of his cement beams was on Ash's head. Squinting against the sunlight, Ash was barely able to make out a scene which made his breath catch in his throat.

Cyndaquil.

Fighting a Goldeen.

And losing.

As he struggled to his feet, Ash's memory began to comeback in flickers and clips. He and Cyndaquil had been walking, and then… he'd been hit by a beam of water? Right, because a couple of Goldeen had been spraying water at each other (the species, he remembered, were constantly engaged in play fights, which they seemed to genuinely enjoy more than almost any other wild Pokemon) and one of them must have ducked which meant he'd been hit and—

In front of him Cyndaquil whimpered as a powerful horn attack caught the fire mouse on the fish's horn dragged the fire type closer to the water.

Ash grabbed the jacket pocket where he kept Cyndaquil's ball, knowing he had to return his partner before any real damage occurred, but his pocket was empty. He checked the other pocket, then his pants pockets, but no pokeball manifested. Where was Cyndaquil's ball?! "Hold on Cyndaquil!" Ash shouted as he scoured the forest floor. It had to be here somewhere, but where?

Just as he was about to give up hope, and Cyndaquil reached the water's edge, now barely conscious, a roar split the air.

At the top of the waterfall, far beyond where Ash or Cyndaquil would be able to reach by any natural means, the outline of a Pokemon appeared, scrabbling down the cliffs in moments and throwing himself between the Cyndaquil and Goldeen.

It was a Fraxure, a dragon type Ash had only seen in books.

The Fraxure roared again, directly in the water types face, and the Goldeen—obviously not wanting to end the battle, but nonetheless aware of the danger the dragon type posed—ducked under the water after only a few more seconds.

Ash stared in wonder as the Fraxure watched the river for a few more seconds, eying the other Goldeen threateningly. But the Goldeen had no desire to attempt a battle against a Fraxure, being perfectly content to simply fight amongst themselves, so the dragon type was soon satisfied of the end of the battle.

Behind him Cyndaquil squeaked something, but it did not bother turning its head, instead moving back to the cliff wall.

"Hey! Hey! Fraxure!" Ash said. The Dragon type was strong, and obviously would get along great with Cyndaquil—maybe Ash could have him as his own Pokemon. "Hey Fraxure!"

The Dragon type didn't look at Ash, instead beginning his journey up the rocks.

"Hey!" Ash shouted again, getting annoyed. "I'm talking to you!" Cyndaquil, who had remained where he lay, exhausted, squeaked at him worriedly, but Ash wanted to say his piece. "I was going to offer you a place in my team, but if you're going to act like that then you can just stuff it!"

The Fraxure disappeared over the top of the cliff, and if Ash didn't know any better he'd even say that the dragon type had scoffed at him as he did so.

Frustrated, Ash started to run towards where the Fraxure had disappeared, but before he could get far Cyndaquil squeaked again and Ash turned to look at him.

Cyndaquil did not look good. He had multiple visible and bloody wounds, and his body was soaked through completely—his tail even seemed to be completely doused. At once Ash abandoned his pursuit of the Fraxure that had refused to acknowledge him—had refused to acknowledge Cyndaquil—and instead dashed to his Pokemon's side.

Pulling out the potions he'd brought along, ash carefully fed them one by one to Cyndaquil. It didn't take long for the fire type's injuries to begin clearing—the miracle of modern medicine—and the second his tail began to once again flicker Ash gathered the fire type in his arms, found the dropped pokeball, and pushed through the woods again, knowing that it'd be best to get far away from the most dangerous element. As the view of the waterfall began to be hidden by the trees, though, Ash couldn't help but take one last look at the clifftop.

The Fraxure had not needed to come down, and it had not needed to defend Cyndaquil, so what other reason to have done that could it have but to prove its worthiness as Ash's teammate? And then to simply ignore the Pokemon who it had saved—and ignore that same Pokemon's trainer?!

Dragon types, Ash decided, were much stupider than they were made out to be. He was right to decide to be a fire type trainer; after all, the Cyndaquil that he was carrying in his arms was much more loyal and much nicer than Fraxure—or Drayden, the mean Gym Leader—had ever been.

As he reached the camp, and ahead of him Baoba looked up, confused over both Ash's early return and the lack of accompanying chirps, Ash resolved to never catch a dragon type. They weren't worth the trouble—not one bit.

* * *

If you have any questions/comments/concerns, please review or PM and I'll try to reply.

Also, I know that Ash isn't the most likeable character in this. There's a reason for that, and his behavior will change- just not immediately.


	5. Hopes can go up in flames

Baoba and Ash had set on the road almost immediately after he'd come back to the campsite—they'd be "wasting daylight" otherwise, and who would want that?—and by evening Ash was exhausted. Theoretically, Ash knew that their trip across the rest of Route 16 and into Nimbasa City, past the stadiums and theme parks and Erika's Gym (which Baoba refused to let him even try to challenge!) and into a hotel at the southern edge of the urban area covered less distance than he and Cyndaquil's usual roving treks through Lostlorn Forest.

But that didn't stop him from flopping face first onto his hotel bed the second they'd gotten into the room.

Perhaps it was the lack of a tree canopy to keep him cool in the hot summer weather. Perhaps it was the notably less giving hard asphalt roads and concrete sidewalks. Perhaps it was just the noise—unlike the Lostlorn Forest, or even the White Forest, Nimbasa city was made for people, and full of the babel and clamor that necessitated. Most likely, though, it was not having Cyndaquil beside him.

They had only been on the road for less than an hour when they'd arrived at the city gates, and Baoba had promptly turned to him and told him to recall Cyndaquil.

"What? Why?" Ash had asked.

"Ash, Pokemon are not allowed to roam free in cities without a permit, one which Cyndaquil does not currently have."

"He'll behave! I'll even carry him!" Ash whined, picking up Cyndaquil, who wriggled comfortably in his arms (he was getting quite big, however… maybe he'd just let him down when Baoba wasn't looking)

"Alright," Baoba had said, settling down on the edge of the road and pulling out a canteen of pre-made tea, "here's how this will go. We're going to sit here until you make a choice: either one, you decide to do as I told you to do, something which should not be difficult, given that you are my apprentice, or two, you can decide that being my apprentice is too difficult for you, and that you'd rather be able to decide when and where to return Cyndaquil, or travel without the care of a Pokémon, and that you'd rather choose not to spend your afternoons studying, and I'll take you back to your mother right now. But this—this willful disobedience?—this has to stop. I don't mind questions, Ash, but saying 'no' just because you don't want to do something is not behavior I will endorse."

They'd sat for an hour before Ash had caved.

As they had walked past the various arenas and stadiums and concert halls that made up Nimbasa (The Heart of Leisure and Entertainment) Ash had wondered if perhaps, this time, Baoba had been in the right.

Ash didn't like to be told what to do. He never had, really—even when he'd lived in Kanto and his teachers asked him to complete his homework, and his baseball coach had told him to practice his throwing, and Professor Oak had suggested he focus on an easier type than fire, Ash had been more likely to ignore them than to wonder why they had bothered to give him instructions.

And when he'd moved to Unova he hadn't really gotten better.

Ash had, for as long as he could remember, had a very clear idea of how his future would go. He'd start his Pokémon journey at 10, with a Charmander than obeyed his every command and blew fire ten times hotter than any of its relatives. By the time he was eleven he'd be taking on the Indigo League, blowing away his competition with searing hot flames, and by twelve he'd have a seat on the Elite Four, where it would take him less than a year to challenge the Champion—and win.

This plan hadn't taken long to fall apart.

First, there was the whole "age" issue, where Kanto trainers couldn't start until they were 15. Then, even after they'd moved (although at least it had been rather easy to switch out Charmander with 'a fire type' and the Indigo Conference with the Vertress Conference), he'd still had to deal with finding someone who was willing to apprentice him—which had delayed him by _three years—_ and even once he'd gotten a master the troubles still weren't over.

Baoba, Ash had quickly found, wasn't into just letting him do as he liked. No, he had very specific things he wanted Ash to do: "go find as many different Pokemon as possible", "make sure to study Pokemon conditions tonight—I'll be quizzing you tomorrow morning", "take a shower every day—you wouldn't want to get sick", "return Cyndaquil, we're about to enter Nimbasa", and, worst of all, "you're not challenging Elesa, Ash, there's no way you're prepared."

The thing was, Ash had mostly been focusing on his irritation over Baoba telling him what to do. The question of why Baoba was telling him to do this or that had always kind of… taken a backseat, so to speak.

But maybe that was wrong.

Rolling over so that he was face up, Ash ignored the sound of the shower running and Baoba's humming and pulled Cyndaquil's pokeball out of his pocket.

The other, major, obstacle to his goals was Cyndaquil's complete and utter unwillingness to evolve. He wondered if they were related—if Ash's so-called immaturity meant that his Pokemon didn't want to grow up until Ash did too.

He sighed and sat up.

If he was right, then that would be pretty clear when he actually examined _why_ Baoba had told him to do stuff, so he might as well think through why Baoba said what he said.

Well, the reason why Baoba wanted him to catalog as many Pokemon as possible was pretty clear—after all, Baoba had outright told him that it was to get an idea of the natural ecosystem of Lostlorn Forest. Plus he also guessed it would be helpful to know what a Venipede, or Watchog, or Mamoswine was the next time he came across one.

As for studying Pokemon conditions, and typings, and moves, and natures, and… well, Baoba had made him study a lot of different stuff, although Ash generally didn't do that well in the breakfast quizzes… as for studying in general? Ash figured it wasn't that wild of an assumption to guess that Baoba wanted him to study for the same reason that his teachers had: "it will help you in the future." Well, Mrs. Pearson, Ash had yet to use exponents _at all_ outside of class, so there!

…but he had had to use his knowledge of conditions. And typings. And moves. And… okay, so maybe Baoba was kind of right to make him study all of this stuff.

Making him wash himself every day, on the other hand, was way out of line! When he'd lived in the White Forest, his mother had only made him shower every other day, like a sane person!

Except that Ash hadn't actually done that great a job keeping clean the first couple days, and he'd ended up basically immediately getting the beginnings of athlete's foot, which had _not_ been fun to deal with, and since then he'd increased his efforts to stay clean tenfold, and managed to keep from developing any other infections, so maybe Baoba had been kind of right about that too.

And, as much as he'd protested returning Cyndaquil when they'd gotten to Nimbasa, he also really didn't want to be arrested, so if having a Pokémon out without a permit really was illegal, he guessed Baoba was right about that too.

All of that said, however, there was absolutely no way Baoba was right about not letting him challenge Elesa's gym! Ash knew that he and Cyndaquil were ready—hell, Cyndaquil was already more than able to hit way above what the pokedex said he could, and Ash even had a plan on how to deal with Cyndaquil being paralyzed!

Of course, he and Cyndaquil had not even attempted a battle against the wild Emolga in the forest, and everyone knew that was Elesa's signature Pokémon, but Ash knew that he and Cyndaquil were ready, he just knew it.

"I'm done with my shower, Ash. Your turn." Baoba said, stepping out of the bathroom in his pajamas.

"Why can't I challenge Elesa?"

"…so when I said 'your turn' you heard…?"

"Look, I know I've made a lot of mistakes, but I promise I'll work really hard not to make them again, and I know I'm ready for a gym battle. Cyndaquil's ready to evolve and everything!"

"I'm not saying Cyndaquil's not ready, I'm saying you're not." Baoba sighed and sat on his bed. "How about this—we'll be heading to Castelia City tomorrow, and the gym there is focused on the bug type, so I'll let you challenge that one. Sound okay?"

"Yes!" Ash shouted. This would be his chance—his way of proving that while he might not be perfect, he was still going to become champion. Castelia's gym would be where Cyndaquil decided to evolve, and Baoba decided to give him more freedom, and where journalists would start interviewing him after every battle like they did Benga, Alder's grandson.

Tomorrow would be perfect.

They arrived in Castelia City shortly after lunch, and from then on Ash only had one goal: get to the gym.

"Can't we do this after Burgh's gym?" Ash asked as they checked in at the hotel.

"I don't really see why I have to be here for this." Ash said as he and Baoba stepped into an elevator for a meeting about the possible Safari Zone.

"I already had to go to the last one!" Ash whined as he and Baoba entered yet another building for yet another meeting.

"Can't this wait until morning?" Ash asked as Baoba purchased some supplies they were running low on.

"I promise it'll be quick!" Ash bargained as Baoba made a reservation for a restaurant in 45 minutes—a nice 6:30 meal.

"But I'm already done!" Ash argued as Baoba cut another bite of Basculin for himself.

"Why—"

"The gym closes at five." Baoba interrupted.

"What?! Then why didn't you let me skip a meeting?" Ash moaned. Now he'd have to wait until the next day to challenge—it wasn't fair!

"Because, quite frankly, I did not feel like awarding your whining. Now, how about this? If you don't complain—at all—tomorrow, I'll let you challenge the gym at three and you can even have the rest of the day to yourself."

"Deal." Ash said. He was going to be challenging the gym, come hell or high water.

The following 21 hours were almost painful for the thirteen year old. Baoba dragged him to one meeting after another, discussing everything from natural populations of this Pokemon or that, current real estate, laws, tourism in various parts of Unova… the meetings went on and on and on.

But Ash was going to challenge the gym, so he had to distract himself. He'd brought along the textbook tablet Baoba had loaned him, and spent most of the first few meetings trying to force himself to memorize the type chart. In the end he'd made sure he'd gotten the bug-type interactions down and called it a day.

Then he'd turned over to status conditions, something he knew bug types specialized in. But even reading about sleep powder made his eyes close, and Baoba made it clear that falling asleep would not be taken well.

Out of all the books it was the section in one of them on gym leaders which held his attention the most.

Burgh, the page on the bug type leader explained, preferred using many set-up moves to straight-up power battles. Someone fighting him was bound to have to deal with moves like screech, string-shot, and sand attack. While he wasn't the biggest fan of status conditions (all that work for naught!), he would occasionally inject one or two into a battle to keep his opponents on their toes. He used one additional Pokemon per badge, but beginning with the fourth badge would always use five Pokemon.

The textbook, from what Ash could figure out, thought that Burgh was one of the easier gyms to challenge, which probably explained why Baoba made him challenge it first, so Ash wasn't too concerned. He figured if he just kept on using Ember and Smokescreen—because the textbook had made it abundantly clear that some set up moves, at least, were always a good idea—Burgh's only Pokemon would get knocked out in no time.

Finally, finally all of the meetings were done. Baoba led Ash up one street and down another until, at last, they'd made it to the Castelia City Gym. Once they'd gotten to the doors, however, Baoba grabbed Ash's shoulder.

"I have another meeting I need to go to, so I'll leave you here, but you need to remember—it's not just your Pokemon that's being tested, but you yourself. You have to show that not only is Cyndaquil ready to have the first badge, but you are too. Best of luck."

Ash nodded Baoba along, eager to get to Burgh, and the second his master turned away he barged through the gym doors to find…

walls of webs?

"Ah, hello young trainer! Are you here to challenge Burgh?"

"Yes! When does the fight start?" Ash asked.

The man, identified by a small name tag which merely stated "Gym Guide", laughed. "It's not so simple! First I'll need to see some identification—have to make sure you're being put up against the right Pokemon for your badge, right?"

Ash groaned but fished out his trainer ID card, handing it over to be scanned. He was already hopped up to fight—why did there have to be beaurocracy first?

"Alright... it looks like you're going for your first badge, so I'll go ahead and tell you the general set-up of gym battling. As you can see, you will not be immediately challenging Burgh. In every gym, before the actual battle, there a different challenge of some kind—a puzzle, maze, maybe other battles—that you must first get through to prove that not only your Pokémon but also you are prepared.

In Burgh's gym the main puzzle is finding your way through the webbing in order to get to Burgh at all. For that I can only offer you one piece of advice—go up."

"...thanks..." Ash said, grabbing his ID back. So, he had to find Burgh, did he? It couldn't be that hard, really.

Ash growled in frustration as he scraped another clump of webbing off his arm. He had been in the gym for almost an hour so far, and while he had run into three other trainers looking to challenge, as well as the numerous Harlequins who were scattered throughout the gym to lead any quitting trainers out, he had yet to find anyone who looked remotely like Burgh.

Instead, to his great dismay, he had spent the time climbing up and down spider-woven tubes, crawling across threadbare tightrope-esque webbing, and valiantly attempting to ignore the constant acrobatics that the Harlequins were doing (he was honestly about 90% sure that they were actually only there to psych challengers out.)

And he hadn't gotten anywhere!

Not once, not twice, but three separate times he'd found himself back at the entrance, and no matter what begging and pleading he did the Gym Guide would only tell him to 'go up.' The harlequins were even less helpful—all they did was ask if he wanted to give up over and over and over and over and over again. Even when he wasn't talking to them. Even when, from what they could see, no one was nearby.

They were really creepy.

The other challengers weren't any help, either—most were just as lost as he was, and what few seemed to know where they were going would notice him tailing them immediately and purposefully get him lost before disappearing back where they'd come from.

Ash had, after almost a half-hour of searching, even released Cyndaquil (nothing said that he couldn't- only that he couldn't 'significantly' damage the webbing), but the fire mouse had been equally confused by the gym's maze.

"Crap!" Ash shouted, yanking furiously at his leg, which had, once again, plunged partway through one of the web bridges. He growled, again, furious, and nearly snapped when a nearby Harlequin sung out

"Do you want to give up?"

"No! I don't want to give up! I will challenge Burgh, and I will win! You'll see!"

In the meantime, though, he didn't really know what to do. He scrambled up one of the sticky tubes and sat down in the (thankfully empty) section it led out to. Maybe... maybe Baoba was right, and he wasn't ready. Cyndaquil certainly was, he had no doubt about that, but if his Pokémon couldn't even compete until he completed his part of the challenge, and he wasn't able to find the Gym Leader?

He knew he was a fantastic trainer, and didn't understand why 'maze solving' was apparently a prerequisite for becoming champion, but if he couldn't find some way around his current situation it was looking more and more like he'd never find out.

"Damn it!" Ash shouted, slamming the web under him with his hand. Some of the threads fell away, but all the new hole revealed was the area he'd just come from and an industrious Sewaddle scampered across the hole to close it up the second he took his hand away.

"Do you want to give up?" A harlequin sang, twirling into the room from an adjacent bridge.

Ash groaned and lied down. Maybe he could figure all this out better after a nap.


	6. Glowing Embers

"Up… up… down… down… left… right… left… right… up again…" Ash muttered. In the end he had decided to brute force his way through the maze—starting at the beginning he'd track each possible route until they, too, split into two or more options. While this would frequently lead to him having to track the possible routes of each possible route, more often than not at least one would lead to a dead end or a web-room Ash knew he'd been in before. It took a while, and he'd gotten lost again twice, but if he was right, then he only had to climb one more web-tube to reach—

"Burgh!"

"Ah-ha! My next challenger! Now, if you wouldn't mind waiting, I just have to do some last minute touch-ups on this painting—" The gym leader said, turning from one of his easels in a corner of the room.

"I'm done waiting!" Ash snapped, cutting Burgh off. "I have been climbing for hours—"

"According to the message I just received from one of my harlequins, you've been here an hour and forty five minutes."

"—and I had to brush off _thousands_ of web strands—"

"You have, like, fifteen on you now, tops. Not great, but—"

"And I had to deal with your harlequins being all weird—"

"Oh, did you like them? When I initially came up with the concept for a Sewaddle silk nest challenge, I figured it needed a bit of a twist—and I always liked the circus!"

"And no one would help me—"

"Well, of course not! That's the whole point of a challenge. It's no fun if you are just given the answers!"

"So I challenge you right now! Not in a minute, or an hour, or a day—right now!"

"Alright, alright!" Burgh said, laughing. "Eager little Caterpie, aren't you? Now, I assume Michael—he's my Gym Guide—gave you an overview of the rules, but specifically for the battle here's what you need to know. I will limit myself to one Pokemon. You may use as many as you wish, but it is highly recommended that you don't use more than the leader you are challenging. You may use one potion in battle, I will not use any. The battle stops either when I return all of my Pokemon, or when you forfeit or break a rule. Are you ready to begin?"

Ash grinned. _Finally._ "Yes."

Burgh pressed a button, and in short order a wall had formed between the tube Ash had entered from and the rest of the room, which itself had morphed into a more standardized gym format. Ash stood in front of the newly formed wall, which looked like it was being controlled by the Volbeat and Illumise hovering in the corner, and across from him Burgh released his Pokemon.

"A Dwebble?!" Ash shouted. There went his entire plan—he'd completely forgotten that there was a bug/rock type that completely wiped out its fire type immunity.

"Release your Pokemon." Burgh called across the arena.

Ash huffed, but sent out Cyndaquil.

He'd just have to win it anyway.

The first few minutes of the battle passed in a blur—Ash had Cyndaquil spam smokescreen, filling the entire arena with thick black smoke, obscuring the field entirely. Unfortunately, Burgh had much the same idea, calling out for his Dwebble to rush in and Sand Attack over and over. While Cyndaquil did manage to avoid the coarse sand most of the time, by the time Ash was happy with the smoke levels Cyndaquil was clearly having trouble keeping his eyes open.

Eventually, though, both sides seemed to simultaneously agree that enough set-up had been done and both screamed out an attack at the same time—as one, his Dwebble began pumping Rock Blasts in every possible direction while Cyndaquil nosed around his smoke, trying to avoid the rocks while sending Embers his opponent's ways.

That said, Ash wasn't entirely happy with the way the battle was going.

In truth, it was nothing like he'd expected.

He'd imagined battles as moves where Pokémon pumped out one flashy, visually impressive move after another at each other, standing at opposite sides of the arena and bombarding each other, testing their power and stamina.

At least, that was what it was like in ALDER: A Dramatic Retelling of a Champion's Rise to Greatness.

Admittedly, the actual battles he'd watched were less flashy, less impressive, but he'd always assumed that was just because they couldn't hope to match the brilliance of a current Champion like Alder, or a future Champion like himself.

That said, this battle—his first trainer battle—was doing more than he liked to prove that assumption false.

Honestly? It was boring.

He and Burgh each stood, quietly staring into the grey mass, hoping to catch any sight of either of their Pokémon. Within the arena both battlers wildly aimed attacks, blindly hoping to get lucky and hit their opponent. Both, however, were not doing particularly well—if Ash had to guess, an attack hit only once or twice every fifteen attempts.

And that was just from what he could see.

This was not the spectacle he'd been hoping for, and he found himself increasingly frustrated. He wanted Cyndaquil to be able to use Heat Wave like Alder's massive Volcarona did, to trample his opponents with a massive Blast Burn, like the opposing Emboar did during the final battle in the movie.

Instead, Cyndaquil knew a grand total of four moves: Leer, Smokescreen, Ember, and Tackle. Those weren't the moves which got oohs and aahs—they were the ones you used when every other possible attack was proven impossible in some way; in truth they weren't much more powerful than Splash.

And those were the moves he was relegated to using.

"Ember some more!" Ash shouted. He knew that Cyndaquil didn't need the instruction, but he desperately wanted to do something, _anything_ , so he called out the order regardless.

Unfortunately, just as he said that, Cyndaquil squealed—not in excitement, but in pain.

"Cyndaquil!" Ash shouted. He took one step forward, but managed to stop before entering the bordered arena—if he hit it, it would be assumed that he forfeited. He bounced on the balls of his feet, trying desperately to see through the smoke. "Cyndaquil? Come on, are you okay?"

Across from him, Burgh also leaned forward. He stayed quiet, though he clearly looked like he wanted to say something.

Ash fingered his Pokeball—should he hit the button now? Should he wait for Cyndaquil to get hit again? He hesitated, but Cyndaquil being healthy was the most important thing. He pointed the ball to the stadium.

Then—

A chirp.

A single one, but clearly from Ash's pokemon nonetheless.

"You okay?" Ash called.

Another chirp, then a flash of fire barely perceptible through the smoke. Ash grinned.

A minute or so later a bedraggled Dwebble slowly crawled out of the fog. One of its eyes was swollen shut, and burn marks laced its claws. Its shell was fairly unharmed, but Cyndaquil had apparently done a fairly good job targeting the weaker parts of the bug/rock type, so that was expected.

Across the arena Burgh also took in his Pokémon's condition, before apparently finding it too poor. He held up one fist—telling Ash to stand down—as he pressed his own pokeball's return button.

"That was... sufficient for a first badge." Burgh said. He made a gesture, and his lightning bugs let down the barriers. At the same time Burgh pushed a few buttons on a nearby control power, sending a large gust through the room and clearing out the smoke and sand in one go, leaving only a badly hurt Cyndaquil standing in the field.

"Return your Pokémon, please. You shouldn't release him again until you reach a Pokémon center." Ash did as he told, seeing the logic, then stepped forward while Burgh rifled through a series of cabinets.

"A-ha!" Burgh shouted. He pulled out a badge—a green and gold insect wing with, as Ash soon found out, a small '1' etched into its back. "Now, if I may offer you some advice?"

Ash shrugged and nodded. He wasn't really great with criticisms, but his recent thoughts had reminded him just how useful suggestions could be.

"So, here's the thing. First badges are notoriously easy."

Easy—easy?! Burgh called that easy? He nearly lost! He'd barely scraped a win by, and honestly most of the work, and thought, was done by Cyndaquil, not by him.

"In later Gym battles you can expect much more difficult opponents—not only will they be at higher levels, but you should expect future Leaders to use TMs, potions, and even psychological tricks. Honestly, right now I don't think you're prepared."

"I did as well as I could!" Ash snapped.

"No, you really didn't." Burgh sighed and leaned against the cabinets. "You could have waited to battle me, but clearly your eagerness won over your understanding of how important preparation was. The idea of using such a large smokescreen was a good one, but in future battles you'll have to be prepared for leaders having moves that can be used in spite of the visibility difficulty, and many will attack you while setting up as well. On top of that, while your Cyndaquil's Ember was actually quite strong, from what I could see it wasn't really well trained—a practiced ember can result in lasting burns, which would have helped you significantly. Finally, new trainers are allowed to use one potion in battle, but from what I can tell you brought none.

Simply put, you rushed in head first and only your Pokémon's natural—not trained—talent managed to get you your badge."

Ash grit his teeth. Really? Placing all of his new success onto Cyndaquil as if he'd done nothing? As if none of his effort mattered?

"Well, I hope to see you much improved in your future battles!" Burgh said, smiling. Ash kept quiet as the Leader led him to one last webbed tube—this one a straight shot to the entrance.

After dropping Cyndaquil off at the Pokemon Center Ash wandered around the city. It was a nice place, really—the skyscrapers and the ligth they let off made the stars Ash liked to look at invisible, yes, and everyone's constant efforts to go from A to B in as short a time as possible meant that no one nodded or smiled like they did in the White Forest, but the sheer diversity present in the pile of cement and glass was, quite frankly, amazing.

The storefronts, performance artists, and dock workers, however, weren't sufficient enough to distract him from the words that were still ringing in his head.

Had he really done nothing to earn his badge? He pulled out his badge case again, rubbing its sole occupant between his fingers.

He'd chosen to rest on a park bench just outside an outdoor training facility. In front of him teens and young adults stood around the yard, each working with their various Pokémon. Some of them were battling, pitting Swadloon against Herdier or Darumaka against Mincinno. Others were having their Pokémon practice the same move over and over again, gesturing and talking, clearly trying to improve the move in some way. Still others were having their Pokémon run laps, or dash through obstacle courses, or practice lifting ridiculously heavy objects. Some of the trainers were even exercising alongside their Pokémon.

Ash had done none of that.

He'd had Cyndaquil go up against wild Pokémon, sure, but he'd never tried to have the fire type build up his muscles. He'd also completely given up on teaching the fire type any new moves—the information he had access to all assumed that Cyndaquil would be evolved by now, so he'd just figured that he'd have to wait for Cyndaquil to evolve.

All of this was, apparently, wrong. He'd dived into the textbooks again after the first time he passed the training center, feeling as if he'd missed something, and he had.

First and foremost, Pokémon could always learn new moves, regardless of whether or not they were currently withholding evolution. Second, exercise was insanely important for Pokémon: while it didn't bring them any closer to evolution, Pokémon which did participate tended to do more poorly against Pokémon of their same level and species, even when accounting for the differences in moves.

Third:

Having a Pokémon trust you? Respect you? That was important. Like, really important. If you took too long to earn or regain their respect, then they'd stop listening to you outright—especially if they already had experience with a better trainer, of which Ash was sure Baoba would qualify.

In short? Ash was a horrible trainer.

He kept rubbing the gym badge between his fingers. He kept watching the training facility. He kept waiting for something, anything, to tell him that his conclusion wasn't valid, that he hadn't messed up as much as he thought he did.

It was shortly after dark when Baoba sat down beside him. Ash hadn't noticed him approaching, but that wasn't a surprise—he'd barely paid attention to the trainers clearing out of the facility several minutes ago.

"Hello again Ash."

"Hi."

"I visited the gym. They told me that you got your first badge."

"Yup."

"You... don't seem that thrilled."

"Am I a bad trainer?" Ash finally asked.

"You are... a new trainer." Baoba said. "And a young one at that. You're going to make mistakes Ash, but as long as you learn from them, as long as you improve, then you'll never be a bad trainer. A bad trainer is one that never learns from their mistakes, that keeps on making the same errors over and over again no matter what goes wrong or who they hurt."

Ash frowned. It was a good sentiment, but Ash still wasn't sure that stopped him from being a bad trainer.

"But what if I make the same mistakes again? What if I already have?" Ash asked. He thought back to the numerous times when he hadn't read up on anything until after the fact, to the times when he refused to listen to anyone else because he was so upset over them treating him like a kid, to the times when he charged headfirst into danger with Cyndaquil at his side despite anyone's reservations.

"Then you need to try harder to not make those same mistakes in the future." Baoba turned to fully face Ash. "Ash, up until now you have been trying to skate through life, to achieve your goals with little to no effort on your own part. If you actually, genuinely want to be a good trainer—a good Champion, if all goes to your plan—then you need to realize that it will be hard, that you will have to face challenges which you cannot simply ignore or breeze through.

If you want to be good, if you want to be great, then you need to try harder to be prepared for those challengers. You need to stop playing games, and start setting aside time to study, to exercise, to improve. You need to intentionally make your life harder, so that when it actually matters you'll find the actual challenges easier. So, can you do it? Can you put your goals above your immediate comfort?"


	7. Burning and Rebuilding

Baoba got him a Casteliacone, and even shelled out the extra money for the fancy Pokémon medicine that was the store next door's second main attraction, as well as a couple of the normal ones from the Pokemart across the street. That said, life goes on, and after spending the evening doing what he could to keep Ash's spirits up, the following day it was back to work: he'd scheduled twelve meetings for that day, so there was no chance of rescheduling. Ash therefore spent almost the entirety of the day in one meeting room or another, because even his revelations weren't enough to convince Baoba to trust him alone for that length of time. That said, Ash didn't complain nearly as much as he would've the day before. While he still felt annoyed at the babysitting, the bulk of his thoughts were focused… elsewhere.

He'd told Baoba yes, the day before. He'd told him that he would put in the effort necessary to be a good trainer. And he'd meant it.

But there were only so many hours that could be spent staring at textbooks. Ash itched go out, to battle, to train, to exercise—memorizing charts of reactions and graphs of the power of moves was something he wanted to do wholeheartedly, but his actual ability to pay attention for that long was... lacking, and he worried that as long as that was the case he'd never be able to succeed as much as was apparently necessary.

His knee started jiggling somewhere around one, and never really stopped. His thoughts were in an unfortunately similar state.

It wasn't until three, however, that he'd begun actually listening to what the meetings were about, and it wasn't until five that he finally put the pieces of what the lawyers, bankers, government officials, and businessmen were all saying together: the Safari Zone wouldn't happen.

The door of the latest meeting's skyscraper banged into its doorstop as Ash shoved it out of his way.

"Ash! Ash! Stop! What's wrong?" Baoba asked, taking off after him. He'd been asking that since the elevator.

"You didn't tell me!" Ash snapped. He kept walking, picking up the pace as he pushed further away.

"Tell you what?" Baoba was huffing now, but he'd managed to catch up to Ash, and now tried to step in front of his apprentice. Ash stopped.

"You're not building the Safari Zone! You're leaving! You're—you're going back to Johto!"

Baoba sighed.

"You're right, I should have told you. Though, to be fair, that was only a certainty today—even yesterday it was still in the air. But Ash, I'm not sending you back to the White Forest."

"It's not like Mom well let you take me with you." Ash said, but the admission was enough to curb his out of control emotions. His fury, which had built over the course of the last fifteen or so minutes, had begun to peter, but he still felt rather hopeless—he wasn't lying when he said his mom wouldn't let him leave the country; honestly, it had taken all of Ash's childhood to convince her to let him leave at all before his fifteenth birthday.

"Oh, no—that wouldn't work at all. I mean, the paperwork alone... what I meant was that I was looking to find you a new master, someone in this region, to maintain your apprenticeship with."

"Who?" Ash asked.

"Well, I haven't quite figured that out yet, but I've got a few friends on a short list. Now, I still have two or three meetings to go to, but—besides this most recent outburst—you've been pretty well behaved all day long. How about I escort you to a training facility? There's one down the block which advertised a $25 entry for walk-ins."

Ash knew a diversion when he heard one, but the offer was one he'd been hoping all day for, so he took the proposal for what it was and within fifteen minutes Baoba had signed and paid his admission fee and Ash was standing in the entrance hall of a five level training facility with an attached coffeeshop (Gym Members get a 10% Discount!)

Ash ignored the coffee and went straight into the locker room. He hadn't actually brought any clothes to train in, but then all of his clothing was basically the same—jeans, a few t-shirts (most of which had various League, fire Pokemon, or Battle Subway logos), a jacket with detachable sleeves, and his Indigo League Expo hat, worn almost every day since he'd lived in Kanto.

So… basically, he didn't really have any athletic clothes even if he had thought to go back to the hotel. Which made dawdling in the locker room kind of pointless. He did store his jacket and cap, though, and after a second added his shirt (a plain black one today) to the locker's pile—why bother getting it sweaty, too?

Clothing and wallet successfully stored, Ash moved into the actual training part of the building. He wandered around the exercise machines fitted for humans and exercise machines for Pokemon with body types A-N. (It occurred to him that he didn't know if that was all the body types a Pokemon could have, much less what Cyndaquil's was.) He walked across an indoor track, dodging out of the way of racing trainers and their even faster Pokemon. He walked past a series of doors, each with only a small window and, according to the signs, meant to be used to test new or particularly dangerous moves.

It quickly became clear to him, however, that the center was far too large to just wander around aimlessly. Everywhere Ash looked there was another room, another activity—there were dance rooms, and ice-specific and electric-specific and insert-type-here-specific rooms and gymnastic rooms and giant swimming pools and even an ice rink. But where should he go?

After a bit more searching he found a map (right next to the locker room doors, amazingly enough—he probably had to work on his perception, too.) While it did a lot to show what was available (the key had 84 numbers, not including the bathroom, elevator, or stairs symbols), the map was less than helpful if one was hoping for it to have a flashing arrow which shouted 'start here!' somewhere on its surface.

Eventually, though, Ash decided to go to the place that even he knew was the worst place to start: The Gift Shop.

It was walled in glass, and its shelves were filled with various work-out equipment with the training center's logo stamped on every piece of merchandise. There were also a couple of bookcases in one corner, and a giant TM section which spanned the rest of the wall.

Ash knew that the best place to go was the bookcases—there'd almost definitely be a couple books on training—but he was almost unwillingly drawn to the TMs.

There were at least twenty different moves available, and most of them had at least five copies to choose from, although there were three single copies which were kept in locked glass cases. Swords Dance, Magnitude, and Hyperbeam, each of them more expensive than the last. Ash stared up at Hyperbeam, a favorite move of any champion. One day it would be his move, too, and every single one of his Pokémon would use it to pulverize their enemies one by one.

But for now...

Ash reluctantly walked to the corner, stopping to stand in front of sheets of paper instead of technical machines.

Sure enough, on the third shelf up, an entire row of "Basic Training" books sat just below eye level. Ash grabbed one at random to start with, flipping through it randomly. Most of the information was the same as he'd read in the textbooks, train your Pokémon's moves, body, and mind, etc, etc, but each of the books added a new spin—three of them highly encouraged exercising with your Pokémon, another was all for acting stoically to your team so that each emotion you did show meant more, and it as well as one other argued for almost solely training against other trainers, while another one argued that the wilderness was the only way to go, and most of the rest argued that you should have a certain percentage of trainer fights to wild fights, although what that percentage was wasn't the same for any of them. There was also one book that pushed for only training and gym battles, but Ash figured that was bunk and didn't bother skimming through the rest of it like he had the others.

In the end, though, Ash decided that the body was the most important—Cyndaquil was a very smart Pokémon, and currently at least somewhat willing to listen to Ash, and according to Baoba and the textbooks alike his species generally didn't learn many moves in the first place, which meant that he had to build up his partner's body until such a time as he could buy one of the TMs which glimmered tantalizingly to his right.

So... how should a Cyndaquil's body be built?

Another survey of the bookshelves found a "Compendium of Ideal Pokémon Training," which divided up what a Pokémon could be trained on into the same five broad categories that the Leagues used—speed, physical defense, special defense, special attack, and physical attack. According to entry J006 (the Pokémon were divided by the region and local pokedex number), Typhlosion should be trained in special attacks and speed, which meant that it was time to run laps.

Fun.

Ash took a set of stairs down to the outdoor track. He'd thought of using the inner one, but that one seemed more popular—the outdoor track, on the other hand, only held two trainers and their respective Stoutland and Krokorok, both of which were running on the inner tracks—tracks which Ash was going to stay the hell away from as long as Pokémon as massive and powerful as that were sprinting full speed on them.

So it was on the outer track of the outdoor track that Ash released Cyndaquil.

"Hey buddy, so, I did some research, and according to a couple books I found, I'm supposed to be training you in speed and special attacking, and I figured we'd start with speed."

Cyndaquil squeaked.

"Yeah, _we_. I mean, I can't really tell if me working out next to you will actually help, but I don't think it'll hurt and I was exhausted every night in Lostlorn Forest anyway, so I probably need to exercise more too."

Explanation given, Ash gestured to the track, and the two of them took off.

In order to best improve speed, the book explained, one should not attempt to run for as long as possible—that was all about endurance, about physical defense. Instead, it suggested sprints no longer than two kilometers, suicides about 30 meters long (battle arenas tended to be anywhere from 15 to 50 meters), and lots and lots of stretching (flexibility, as it turned out, was very important if you wanted fast reflexes.)

So that was just what Ash and Cyndaquil did.

There were handy markers every 25 meters on the track, circling around to create a 500-meter total track, but Ash didn't need most of it. He and Cyndaquil stayed at one side of the oval, in one marked part of the track, and the two of them ran back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

They'd barely been running for fifteen minutes before Ash was gasping, trying desperately to force air in and out of his burning lungs. His legs were on fire too—actually, it was rapidly beginning to feel as if his entire body was, and every step, every breath, every turn at the end of a suicide killed him. He stumbled to a stop, kneeling and putting his head on the tracks as he gasped in enough air to keep the blackspots away from the center of his vision, if not the sides.

Ash had actually considered himself fairly athletic, before—he'd spent entire days scrambling up and down trees, dashing from one White Forest entry to the other, carrying loads of various prank items to and from various niches.

Based on how he was literally lying on the ground, though, that assumption may have been a bit... premature.

Beside him Cyndaquil was still sprinting. His recent regaining of the ability to think caused him to turn his head and watch the Fire type training. He hadn't been going as fast as Ash, not at first, but maybe that had been smart—he, unlike Ash, had yet to slow. Still, according to the book he was supposed to be going as fast as possible, so Ash forced himself to sit up (oh, hey! The black spots are gone!) and shout at Cyndaquil—

"Faster, buddy! As fast as you can! I know you can do it!" Cyndaquil determinately sped up, letting out some smoke from his effort. About a minute after that Ash forced himself up—Cyndaquil was going so fast he'd started to stumble occasionally, unused to having to turn around at such speeds, so Ash really had no reason to be sitting idly by, as much as his body was screaming at him to do just that. He got up and started running again—much, much more slowly than he had been before, but still moving, still showing to his partner that he was just as willing to put in the effort.

Eventually, though, even Cyndaquil began to slow, and the two of them called speed training done for the day and stumbled to the edge of the track, watching the sole remaining Stoutland resolutely pushing forward—according to the trainer's shouts, the normal type had been practicing sprints for the past 45 minutes, and showed only a few signs of flagging.

After watching the Stoutland sprint another few laps, however, Ash figured it was time to go on to the next step of training: special attacking.

The special/physical divide was one that was hotly contested. Physical attacks and defenses were typically the ones in which Pokémon were forced to use their body as the main force, while special attacks involved using energy almost solely as the attack. While physical defenses would weaken the pure energy, the addition of the natural energy in the Pokémon's body would actually boost the attacks. How well they did it, according to Ash's textbooks, was what determined whether Pokémon were generally used as physical or special attackers.

The Typhlosion line? _Sucked_ at incorporated their bodies' natural energies into attacks. (Actually, they sucked at using their bodies' natural energies for pretty much anything: their physical defense was crummy, too, and their special defense was just as bad, which made sense because defense as a whole was more tightly linked to the body than attack)

All of this meant that when training special attackers you didn't really focus on the body; you just focused on the energy.

So rather than tackling the line of exercise equipment Ash and Cyndaquil trooped upstairs and signed up for one of the personal rooms—thankfully, there were a few that were empty, including three fire-type specific rooms.

Within the room there was only a dummy, vaguely shaped like an Audino more than anything else. It stood in the middle of the room, and the rest of the room (including the back of the door) was covered in thick layers of something no doubt flame resistant, although whatever it was didn't work well enough to avoid a few scorch marks that marred a few sections of wall, especially behind the dummy.

"Alright, Cyndaquil," Ash started. He looked around again, then dumped his backpack beside the door. Admittedly, he wasn't nearly as aware of how to go about this as he was speed; the books had been fairly clear on the latter, but besides outlining the difference between physical and special attacks, it was decidedly sparse on details about the former. "We're going to be working on your special attack now. Um... okay, how about we just... how about you show me your Ember again?"

The fire type chirped happily and scrambled in front of the training dummy, blowing a flame into center mass almost instantly.

"Alright, so, I figure we have to make that stronger, right? And the basic way you make anything better is repetition—like, rereading your textbook to study or something—so that's what we'll do. What I want you to do is make your Ember as absolutely large as possible and release it from as far back as possible—I'm hoping you'll eventually be able to hit the dummy from the door."

Cyndaquil chirped in acknowledgement, and the two got to work. Cyndaquil would billow out an Ember, and Ash would critique the results, either telling his partner to make it larger or having Cyndaquil step back a bit if he figured it had been sufficiently powerful. He also made sure to constantly praise him—the books had been in disagreement about this, but Ash figured he'd prefer to be nice to Cyndaquil rather than only acknowledging him when he had to (plus, he'd like to consider him a friend, and that's not how you treat your friends.)

As the training session went on it became clear that the fire type was only able to consistently hit powerful embers about three meters from the target. Cyndaquil could actually hit the target from as far back as six meters, but the distance wiped most of the power from the attack by the time it hit the dummy. Ash kept Cyndaquil practicing, though, even telling him to experiment—maybe he could find a better way to release the energy.

The duo trained for about two hours before Cyndaquil got so tired he couldn't even release one Ember, but Ash figured it was a job well done. He hadn't seen any progress, admittedly, but even he knew that massive changes didn't happen overnight—just like his running sprints today wouldn't make him a superstar track and field athlete tomorrow, he had to make sure Cyndaquil practiced every day if they wanted to see any kind of results by the time they hit the next gym.

Still, just going out and actively exercising for the first time made him feel accomplished enough, and by the time Baoba picked him up Ash had even managed to redirect some of his good mood into studying the type chart again. He'd even played one of the minigames the textbook offered to test himself with, and he'd gotten an 82%—far from perfect, of course, but then he also knew it was light years away from what he would have scored even a few days ago.

Yes, in general, life was going well. Now he just had to hope that trend continued when Baoba left.


	8. Passing the Torch

Baoba, in his quest battle to "build Ash's character", refused to tell the boy who his next master would be.

He had actually considered just telling the boy, a temptation which increased in direct proportion to Ash's whining, but he never followed through. Baoba hoped that if Ash did not get want he wanted often enough by begging, then perhaps he'd stop believing that his belligerence would make any difference. Not that the results would be immediate enough for him to notice, of course, but he had always liked that proverb about men planting seeds for trees they'll never lie in the shade of, so he reasoned that his actions, however temporarily infuriating for all those involved, were still in line with his beliefs.

Mind you, it was unclear that telling Ash would have any positive impact on the boy's noise level. After all, from what he knew of the tween, being told he was being apprenticed under a man who was a gym leader, and a superstar besides, would be... well, it wouldn't be a cause for quiet, that's for sure.

Still, as he and Ash made for Virbank City, Baoba couldn't help but consider the little noisemaker in a positive light.

When he'd initially been accosted by the thirteen-year-old, and agreed to give him a test to become apprentice, Baoba had simply assumed he'd give up. All three of the Pokemon Baoba had offered—Cyndaquil, Totodile, and Chikorita—were all quite stubborn Pokemon who did not appreciate loud noises and movement, so he knew it would take a special kind of effort to convince them to go with as brash a boy as Ash.

Unexpectedly, however, Ash had somehow come back from his mad chase with Cyndaquil as his willing partner.

So, despite all his misgivings, despite the sheer length of time it took Ash to accomplish his goal, and despite his absolute certainty that Ash was a poster boy for why the minimum journey age had been increased, Baoba felt compelled to hold up his end of the deal.

But the boy had not made it easy.

The entire time spent in Lostlorn Forest was characterized by his mistakes; in fact, Ash made nearly every rookie error in the book. It didn't matter that he'd certainly been told exactly what to do in this or that situation when he'd been in school, Ash had somehow managed to ignore or forget every single thing he'd been taught the second his feet had left the White Forest, and it was Baoba who had had to pay the cost—in some cases quite literally. Nonetheless Baoba did his best to instill at least the minimum necessary to survive a journey; how to camp, how to analyze battles and illnesses, how to run away…

He still felt only partially successful.

It had, after all, not been anything he'd done that had forced Ash to realize that he needed to change. Instead, of all things, it was his victory.

Baoba honestly still didn't understand that. He'd been a much more even-keeled and rational boy than Ash when he'd started his journey, admittedly, but it had always taken some sort of failure, a lack of good food, being soaked in the rain, or a lost battle, that had forced him to make changes to his behavior. To have giant shifts in his thinking due to success?

But for Ash that was exactly what had done it. That evening the boy had tried to explain what had precipitated this revelation, of course; he'd attributed some of it to Baoba's own teachings, as well as Cyndaquil's refusal to evolve, but he explained that the main thing that had convinced him that he needed to improve had been the feeling that he hadn't contributed to his own victory. And while Baoba still couldn't quite understand that, he did try to account for that revelation when choosing Ash's next master: the boy didn't need a teacher, he needed to be a part of it.

Brycen, the gym leader-cum-celebrity, was well known for refusing to battle anyone outright until they proved that they actually wanted to win, which consisted of three parts. While Baoba was sure Ash had the mental grit for it, he had no doubt he was lacking in… other areas, areas that would have to be built upon if he wanted to pass the test and give Cyndaquil even a chance of winning the battle.

Simply put, he hoped that Brycen's particularly intense focus on the trainer, rather than the Pokémon, would force Ash to not only improve himself but also feel a part of his own journey.

Brycen himself had been a bit reticent to take on the challenge of the tween, and in the end only agreed to take Ash for a short time, but he did promise to give Ash as much attention as possible, and to ensure he had a good master after him, so Baoba felt that his choice was the right one.

It honestly would probably have been easier to just hire one of the professional masters to deal with Ash. Some were quite cheap—relatively speaking, at least—but they'd all do perfectly well in keeping Ash alive and learning something until it was time to start his journey officially.

But… there was something about the boy which convinced Baoba that something _more_ was necessary.

Baoba had met plenty of others who behaved just like him, of course. Plenty of youngsters—mostly boys—with inflated egos and irrational ideas about their future career path. Some managed to straighten out, as Ash was showing signs of doing, and either attack their journey with twice as much vigor and four times as much humility, or failing that be capable of rerouting their energy into some other career that they _could_ prosper in. Others never quite managed to get their heads out of their behinds, and never amounted too much, far too focused on how amazing they must be to realize that there were other people in the world besides them, and that they, too, were amazing in their own right.

And then there was Ash. At first, second, even third glance, he seemed the same as the lot of them at the beginning of their journeys. But the longer you knew the boy the less typical he seemed. He had somehow managed to get a Pokémon who was quite nearly the antithesis of his every character flaw to listen to him, to follow him, to genuinely like him. He had somehow managed to run through the forest and meet all sorts of different Pokémon, some much more powerful than him, sometimes without even Cyndaquil by his side, and come out the encounter unscathed in the long term.

He'd perhaps downplayed the danger Ash found himself in more than he should have, but then for the particularly bad encounters—the ones with Pokemon that could easily bat Cyndaquil around while half-asleep—he'd only found out about afterwards, and what was he supposed to say? Don't ever take that risk again? It's not like Ash would listen; after all, he'd gotten out of the meetings scot-free the first few times, why wouldn't that happen again?

And while Baoba would like, would love, to attribute all that to luck, he had far too much experience to be that short sighted. In his life he'd met certain people who had a sort of nearly supernatural gift to get Pokemon to, if not like them, then at least respect them to a far greater level than what they'd technically earned.

Baoba knew that Ash was one such person.

And while their childhoods had varied as much as was humanly possible, they'd each followed remarkably similar paths in adulthood—they'd become advocates, crusaders, and champions; they'd each ended up with front page articles singing their praises. The oldest were even beginning to appear in textbooks and the like—Professor Oak, overachiever that he was, had started showing up when he was still in his twenties, but most were at least nearing middle age before they became household names.

And while Baoba had to admit that he himself didn't seem to have the same natural Pokémon-centered charisma that they were blessed with, Brycen did.

So yes, he hoped that under Brycen's tutelage Ash would be nurtured as both a trainer and a person, and that the boy would begin to regain some of his oh-so-clearly lost gaiety, and that Cyndaquil would grow too, but Baoba also hoped that Ash being around another such as himself might cause him to pick up some of the more desirable traits that Baoba had no doubt he would have later cultivated anyway a bit quicker. He hoped that Brycen's own natural Pokémon-magnetism might show Ash that he wasn't as special as he'd originally thought—the boy really needed to learn that there were others who cared for Pokémon just as much as he did, and if Baoba's quiet love wasn't proof enough, perhaps Brycen's more flamboyant affection would be more clear and in line with Ash's own approach.

...

Perhaps he was placing too many expectations on Brycen. The man would, after all, only be Ash's master for a few weeks at most. But he couldn't help it. The young boy had grown on him like a Grimer.

"OoOoOoOo!"

The horn of the ferry began to shriek in his ear and Baoba was startled back into reality as the ship pulled into Virbank's port. Beside him Ash began to bounce excitedly. He'd not really noticed Baoba's attention drifting off, and instead continued to plow ahead with an in depth description of just how amazingly he and Cyndaquil's day at the gym had gone.

But now they were at the city and Ash's own focus was once again drawn to who, exactly, they would meet there.

"I mean, it could be nearly anyone! I mean, not anyone, obviously, but still—Virbank is one of the largest cities in Unova; it's not as large as the capitol, but then what is? Hey, do they work in Virbank or are they just coming through like you? Wait—we're not just stopping here on the way to the farmlands, right? Because I heard that there are some people who send their kids there to train, and I'm not willing to be free manual labor. If I was paid though… still no, actually. Did you know Virbank has _two_ gyms? I really hope my next master will let me challenge both of them. Hey—"

The tween's voice kept Baoba company as they disembarked and he called over a bike-taxi to take them across the town. He told the cabbie the street address of Brycen's trailer in Pokestar Studios, and tried to listen as the boy began rattling off how he'd seen this or that street or building in this or that movie. He'd seen many, many movies, and each and every one of them was in the Pokemon battling genre. Baoba wondered if that was where Ash had gotten such messed up ideas on how his journey was supposed to go. Arceus knows they never showed the daily effort to build a camp on the big screen.

"And over there—hey, wait!" Ash shouted. "Are we—we are! We're entering Pokestar studios! My master works in Pokestar studios? Please, please, please tell me that they're a celebrity. I'd love to be taught under Rock Thomas! Can you imagine? Or—or maybe Chris Flame. He mostly acts with fire types, so it'd be a good fit, you know? I can't believe I'm going to be apprenticed to an actor!"

"We're nearly there." Baoba responded. "You'll find out then."

"But—but! Come on, how about a hint! I've been waiting so long!" Ash whined.

"And you'll have to wait a little bit longer." He sighed. It'd be nice to be rid of this headache. It wasn't entirely Ash's fault, to be honest—the lawyers and the like from the days previous were just as much a contribution—but the boy was the one currently causing the most fuss, and he needed to make it back to Nimbasa in time to catch the train to the airport by tomorrow anyway.

The cabbie stopped pedaling. "Here we are." He said. He passed back a credit card machine for Baoba to swipe, which he did, adding a 15% gratuity on top of it.

The cabbie had stopped to the side of the trailer, rather than directly in front of it, which meant the name plastered on the door wasn't quite legible, but that didn't stop Ash from nearly leaning out of his seat to try to read it.

"Come on! You must have paid by now!"

"Yes, I'm done. You can—" Baoba started. Ash leapt out of his seat. "Get out now."

"FORCES OF NATURE! My master's going to be BRYCEN?!"

"There is no need to shout, Ash. Yes, your _temporary_ master will be Brycen—"

"Temporary? Why temporary? Wait—who am I going to after him?" Ash asked. Baoba began to seriously regret allowing Ash to choose his own lunch on the ferry. Pigging out on sugar candy and soda seemed to have an adverse effect on Ash's ability to be polite.

"Yes, temporary. Brycen can only take you for a few weeks. He's about to star in a new movie—and _please_ don't pester him for information about it, he's signed non-disclosure agreements—but until he starts he's agreed to be in charge of you. He will also be picking your next master after himself, so please remember to treat him with respect."

Baoba knocked.

The door swung open, revealing a tall, stereotypically handsome man wearing some leisure clothes and slippers. Outside of his costumes, actually, Baoba had never seen him dressed in anything that could even remotely be defined as uncomfortable. And given how sore his feet felt at the end of a long day, Brycen's fashion technique didn't seem entirely unreasonable.

Right. Ash.

"You-you-you're—You're Brycen!"

"I should hope so. It would be quite unfortunate to learn I've stolen someone else's identity for my entire life."

"You- you star in Brycen-Man! And Mecha Cop!"

"That I do. So, you're going to be my apprentice, are you?"

"Yes sir!" Ash's grin couldn't possibly get any wider.

"Excellent. Here's my credit card. Go down to Darumaka Coffeehouse and get me a vente iced half caff 4-pump sugar free cinnamon dulce soy skinny latte."

"...What?"

"Well, I'll leave you to it then!" Baoba smiled. He wondered how long it would take Ash to realize what the first test was. Oh well, not his concern anymore.

"Au revoir, Baoba. And I asked for a vente iced half caff—are you writing this down? You should be writing this down."


	9. Stoking the Flames

Ash violently kicked at some gravel as he and Cyndaquil kept on searching for an apparently dropped hair tie.

It had been one week since the paperwork to switch masters had been completed, and in that week Ash had come to one very clear revelation: the switch was the worst thing to have had ever happened to him.

After the first day, which consisted solely of running errands for Brycen until he finally went to bed, each day had developed a routine which seemed almost designed to make Ash miserable.

First, at dawn, Brycen would wake up and begin training his Pokemon. Ash learned the hard way that he would not only not wake Ash up, he also didn't particularly care if the boy showed up at all.

The training would be about the same every day; Brycen would divide them into groups and they would focus on one aspect or another of their training, and the next day he would divide them into different groups and they'd focus on a different aspect.

Because he was a gym leader, these training sessions typically included what Ash guessed was about fifty Pokemon total, and they were all supposed to train for different lengths of time and do different things even within their groups. After the first three days of running around like a Zubat, trying to keep up, (as well as the additional two that he'd shown up too late to participate at all), Ash finally gathered the courage to just ask Brycen what he should be doing.

The man had simply waved at his pair of Delibird, telling Ash to follow their lead.

So now, from dawn to eight every day, Ash and Cyndaquil ran sprint after sprint, performed one acrobatic trick after the other, and, at least in the case of Cyndaquil, rattled off as many embers as physically possible while Ash tried to follow his textbook's very brief summary of how to teach one's Pokemon Flame Wheel.

Thankfully, there did seem to be some pay-off from the training (a slowly forming Flame Wheel and noticeably better speed should not be taken lightly), but the rest could not be said about the rest of the day, because after Brycen finished training he seemed to suddenly remember Ash's existence. And promptly tell him to get the most convoluted breakfast order imaginable, from a store halfway across town, and that it needed to still be hot when it reached Brycen. He'd then give Ash barely enough to pay for the food with a 20% tip and disappear into his dressing room.

This, on its own, would have been annoying but fine. At least it allowed Ash to see a lot of Pokestar Studios and most of Virbank—Brycen rarely ordered from the same place twice. But the problem was that when he finally came back half the time Brycen would just make him redo the order (its too cold/you forget item A/item B was damaged/etc.) And the second the order was completed adequately? Brycen would suddenly remember trailer roof hadn't been cleaned in a while, so he should do that. It's clean? Let's check. No, no, no, it needs to be much cleaner than that! It's finally up to Brycen's exacting standards? Great! That means Ash finished just in time to take Brycen's mountains of clothing to the laundromat.

Today's fifth fool errand was finding one of Brycen's hair ribbons, which he was absolutely positive he dropped on the way to a shoot.

And Ash didn't even know if he _wanted_ to bother to find it, because he knew that it was late enough in the day that his next assignment would be to get dinner, then find Brycen a three day old newspaper (he never wanted a new one, only ever one that was three days old), then, if he was lucky, Brycen would decide he was done for the night and Ash would get the rest of the day to play videogames and hang out with Cyndaquil until he passed out.

Generally, though, Brycen would keep going until midnight, having Ash run to this store or that for this thingamajig or that and then to the local electrical plant to "charge my hair dryer's battery a bit closer to the source—I'm absolutely positive it works better if I do that!"

So most days all Ash had time for was passing out and hoping that his alarm did a good enough job waking him up that Cyndaquil could get the most out of training.

The worst part, though, was the others.

Ash violently kicked another pile of gravel, rationalizing that the ribbon may very well be under it, while he tried very hard not to look at the two other teens who were doing the exact same thing he was. On any given day Brycen would have upwards of seven trainers each trying desperately to convince him to let them battle him, and every day he'd assure them that that was exactly what he would do… just as soon as his to-do list was empty.

Most gave up within two days. Some had been there since Ash arrived. Others came out of Brycen's gym in the middle of the day triumphantly holding a badge and absolutely refusing to tell anyone else how they'd done it.

By day four Ash was absolutely dead-set on becoming one of the latter, apprenticeship or no.

He glimpsed something blue out of the corner of the eye, but closer inspection revealed it was only a bottle cap. He picked it up anyway—Brycen had the oddest habit of asking for the most random things, and it wouldn't hurt to already have one on hand.

He finally forced himself to look at the other two trainers. There were three more, besides them, today, but the rest had been sent on different errands. For some reason Brycen had thought it necessary to sic three people on his hair ribbon, but admittedly Ash thought that was a bit better than Adam R.'s mission of "finding the clementine peal he through into the trash yesterday—[Brycen'd] meant to put it in the compost.

To be fair, nearly anything was better than that.

Not that you could tell from the demeanors of Sam or… Ash didn't actually remember what the other guy's name was. Honestly, though, the two of them were acting even worse than he was! The second one had outright given up, but refused to leave the area—Nancy L. had done something similar two days before, and then she'd tried to steal the 'really smooth white stone' that Ash had found the second he tried to leave. That was certainly something to keep an eye on. Sam, at least, wasn't an issue on that front—he was currently outright sobbing. He'd been there since before Ash, after all, and was now the only one left.

Ash, at least, had managed to keep from bursting into tears or resorting to bullying, so at least he could take solace in that.

On the other hand, he was just randomly kicking rocks right now, and had completely given up searching, so it wasn't as if he was doing great either.

Of course, the constant noise in his head—why was he doing this? Why Was He Doing This? WHY WAS HE DOING THIS?—wasn't exactly helpful.

He (or more accurately, Cyndaquil) was, for better or worse, the one to find the hairband nearly an hour later, and was therefore the one that got the coveted dinner order (coveted only because it was less boring and/or exhausting than most other tasks.) Thankfully by the time he'd come back Sam had dealt with the whole newspaper thing, so Ash had only had to clean Brycen's make up stand and wash the dishes before he was dismissed for the day, leaving plenty of time to relax.

By the next morning, however, Ash decided that he'd had enough.

His alarm had taken a full fifteen minutes to wake him up, and as he'd been rushing through brushing his teeth and scarfing down a protein bar for breakfast, he'd just… snapped, and stormed out onto the training field immediately.

Thankfully, as Brycen's apprentice, he was the only one allowed to train with the gym leader, which meant no one else saw him marching around in only shorts and with toothpaste gunk stuck to the edge of his lip.

"What's your deal, man?" He shouted.

"Hm?" Brycen asked. He did not turn away from helping his Beartic through a breathing exercise.

"I've been here for a week already, and you've done absolutely nothing to help me! I should've just gone home—I could've gotten better training from a _Dunsparce_ than you!"

"Is that so?" Brycen said.

"Yes!" Ash shouted. "All of your stupid chores are doing nothing to help me as a trainer! It shows nothing of what I'm capable of!"

"You'd like to prove yourself?" Brycen asked. Ash really, really wished he'd react with more than simple questions.

"Yes." He growled.

"Alright." That… that was not the response Ash was expecting.

"Alright?!"

"Yes, alright. Admittedly, I would have preferred it if you had simply outright asked to prove yourself to me, but at least you have stopped asking for a battle as if the path to getting there doesn't matter."

"…What?"

"You have challenged a gym before, yes?" Ash nodded. "And did you immediately begin to battle the leader, or had their been another obstacle in your path?"

Ash blinked. "You're pre-battle challenge was me doing your _chores_?"

"Of course not." Brycen replied. "That would be silly. You doing my chores is only half of my challenge. The other half is the part I particularly enjoy. Meet me at my set at ten, will you?"

Ash blinked at him.

"You really should rinse, by the way. Good hygiene and all that."

Ash went to finish getting ready.

The second half of the challenge, as it turned out, was even worse than the first half.

Have you ever tried to do gymnastics for the first time in your life in front of dozens of people while a movie is being shot over the course of five hours?

Ash didn't think so.

He had, though, and despite having new aches, pains, and bruises which he was absolutely sure would never fade, he was finally, finally allowed to challenge Brycen.

"Bring it on, old man." Ash said as they finally made their way into the adjacent gym stadium. He and Cyndaquil had been practicing after all, and while they still hadn't quite gotten to Flame Wheel, Ash was sure even _Ember_ could take out a few measly Ice types.

Brycen sent out a Delibird.

Ash grinned. This bird he knew well, and at its level? His textbook made it quite clear the bird wouldn't know anything more than Present. The first half of this fight would be a piece of cake.

The battle started. The Delibird used Toxic. Cyndaquil twitched. Ash did the same.

Right, TMs. Can't forget those.

While Cyndaquil raced around the stadium, trying to hit the faster Pokemon with Ember, Delibird proved that point another two times, using Protect and Double Team every time it seemed as if Ash's fire mouse might actually have a leg up.

The problem, of course, was that Cyndaquil was the only Pokemon Ash had, and he was weaker, slower, and less prepared than the dopey bird Ash had thought wouldn't be a challenge.

And it wouldn't have!... if it was untrained. Which, given that Ash had actually _been there_ when it had been trained (even if he and Cyndaquil had broken off during the moves portion to work on Flame Wheel) he should have known would be the case.

Finally Ash just returned Cyndaquil before he could faint. It was clear there was no chance at victory, and so there was no point in the fire type hurting itself anymore. Ash sat where he stood, staring at the still pristine battleground before him. Brycen's feet made their way into his vision, until his knees were included too.

"Guess it's back to chores, huh?" Ash asked. Honestly, he hadn't even thought of the chance that he would lose. He knew for a fact he was better prepared than with Burgh, he knew he still had the type advantage, and he knew that out of those who _had_ managed to battle Burgh in the past week, not one had walked away looking as if they had lost. So the whole losing-in-fifteen minutes thing?

Maybe everyone was right, and he was still immature to be on his journey. So far he had barely managed to do anything right, and what had gone in way was more because of Cyndaquil's actions than his own.

"I think that would be pointless, considering you have already passed the challenge." Brycen replied. He held out an empty Pokeball. "Improving your team, on the other hand, would be a good use of time. Do you know where the Virbank Center is?"

Ash nodded.

"Excellent. There are plenty of Pokemon there that are immune to poison. How about you catch one and we can try again?"

Ash nodded much more quickly.

Neither moved.

"…You are going to take the Pokeball, yes?"

Ash grabbed it. His mouth was beginning to involuntarily widen again.

"Hop to!" Brycen said, before turning around and walking out the back door. Just before it swung shut Ash heard Sam squeak "here's the Emboar carving you wanted!" And Ash laughed.

Okay, so he had lost. But he had also passed the challenge, which plenty of other trainers who were actually legally old enough to battle had not, and Brycen had outright given him a Pokeball to help him do better in the next battle.

Life was good.

The Virbank Center, on the other hand, was not.

There was a persistent metallic twang in the air, and the electricity buzzing through the wires all around him gave him a migraine the second he entered. The center was also not particularly safe—it was spread out over a large section of coastline, but really all it was was a series of power plants shoved beside one another, with strategic pipes connecting the lot and most of the ground utterly ignored. There were, to be fair, a number of other trainers around, but they mostly stuck near the entrance—a sign in the front had pointed out that the same Pokemon were available anywhere within the complex, so trainers should try to avoid wandering too far in and getting hurt in an area that wasn't well patrolled—"Stick to the road and you'll be gold!" It had proclaimed in block letters at the bottom.

So now Ash had a decision to make. Should he stay where the rest of the trainers are, and try to capture a Pokemon before any of the rest of them spotted it, or should he go further out, into the less travelled—and less traversable—parts of the Center and try to find a Pokemon there?

In the end the choice was made for him.

Another trainer, this one at least seventeen, had been using his Gurdurr to randomly swipe at bits of grass, and it looked as if he had gotten lucky, as the one he had currently been targeting let out a large whimper when bashed.

"Yes!" He shouted, and several other nearby trainers (Ash included) turned to look.

"Come on Elekid!" He shouted. A bit of orange fur popped out, and he groaned—and so did the onlookers. "I've already got a fire type!" He griped. "Come on, Mash, let's look elsewhere."

"It's not even immune to poison types!" Another trainer said to her friend.

Her friend replied, "I mean, don't get me wrong, Growlithe can be strong, but with how expensive their evolutions can be? You're better of with a Darumaka or something."

Ash, on the other hand, slowly approached the orange fur. A strong fire type seemed ideal for his team, and while Growlithe had never really grown that popular here, back in his home country they had been all the rage, and multiple Elite Four challengers had laid claim to an Arcanine on their team.

Ash just hadn't known they could be found in Unova at all, much less in a power center. He threw his ball and released his Pokemon.

"Cyndaquil, quick attack." He murmured. Best to ensure it was down before attempting capture—Ash still only had one ball.

The fire mouse whipped forward, and the puppy pokemon reared back. Ash threw his ball, it connected, and easy as that Ash had two Pokemon.

"Ha!" Another trainer cried. "One Magnemite caught, one Poison gym to be conquered!"

Oh.

Right.

He was supposed to be looking for something that could withstand Toxic.

Oh well, he had a Growlithe!


	10. Battling Flames

When Ash had been little, he'd seen Growlithe all over the place. They'd been a favorite pet, both in real life and TV, and they'd always been pictured as some of the sweetest, smartest Pokemon around. Not only that, but Arcanine like Professor Oak's also showed that they could also be very, very strong.

The one Ash had caught?

Wasn't acting like that at all!

His Growlithe was disobedient, and didn't care about battling at all, much less spending any time with Ash. It (she, as he'd quickly found out) wouldn't even go to the bathroom where he said.

"Growlithe!" Ash shouted, chasing down his Pokemon who had, once more, taken off in the middle of training to go who-knows-where for who-knows-what reason.

The good news, at least, was that he wasn't expected to do the stupid chores anymore. Instead, he spent all day, every day, trying in vain to get his newest fire type to listen to him.

It really wasn't going well.

Ash grimaced, squirming past an ill-placed dumpster to keep tracking Growlithe.

It had been nearly four days since he'd captured Growlithe, and since then she had been nothing but trouble. When she wasn't running away, she was pestering anyone in sight, and when she wasn't doing that, she was breaking into whatever food stores she could find. Ash had already wasted all of the rest of his money paying damages for Growlithe's damages, and now he had no choice but to chase after her until she was caught.

"Growlithe!" Ash chased Growlithe down a set of stairs, but the good news was that she'd found herself caught—the only way out was the staircase or the canal, and as far as Ash knew—

"You can swim?!" Ash yelped, blinking at the fire type which was now doggedly paddling up the canal. Ash looked around. He couldn't exactly swim after her, what with the Frillish in the water, and he hadn't yet gotten near enough to return her. He also couldn't exactly run up the stairs—that would definitely put him out of range to return, and Ash didn't know how long it would take for…

oh no.

Out in the water, several meters from any wall, Growlithe had suddenly flinched. She wasn't moving nearly as fast now, and Ash could just make out a couple of eerie shapes beginning to surround the fire type.

"Shit." Ash muttered. He looked around, but no one was in sight. Growlithe had chosen a street mostly lined with offices, and it was only ten; no one was leaving for lunch yet. He had to do something risky, then…

He hoped that this would work. Otherwise it may be one of the most miserable days of his life.

He released Cyndaquil.

"Hey, buddy. I need you to do me a favor." Cyndaquil squeaked, and while Ash could tell that meant 'yes', he also seemed in a mood. Now, however, was not the time. "See Growlithe? I think she's surrounded by Frillish, and I need your help. You learned flame wheel, right? Well, I need you to hit the Frillish with that.

Cyndaquil squeaked again.

"I know it's not very effective, but it's not exactly like I have many options, okay? And anyway, you're much stronger than the Frillish, so I'm sure you can take them down no problem." It took some more cajoling—Cyndaquiil didn't seem to have nearly the faith in his plan as Ash did—but finally, Cyndaquil chirped and turned to the canal. Thankfully, in the intervening time Growlithe had apparently decided her best option was heading back where she came, and she was finally within range of Cyndaquil's fire attacks, if not her pokeball's ability to return.

"Now!" Cyndaquil let out a series of fast Flame Wheels, hitting at least two of the now visible Frillish dead-on. Some of his flames hit Growlithe, but thankfully she had the Flash Fire ability.

Growlithe was still paddling, maybe even moving a bit faster now that the end seemed to be in sight, and Ash pulled out her pokeball.

"Come on… come on… a bit closer…" Ash muttered. He leapt back as several of the Frillish launched a counter attack, slamming a series of Bubble Beams into Cyndaquil. Thankfully, that had taken their attention off of Growlithe, but the fighting meant that Ash had to jump back, and so she still wasn't within reach.

"Come on! Paddle, Growlithe!" Cyndaquil looked hurt, now. He was doing the best he could, but he was basically fighting at a type disadvantage four against one, and it really wasn't going well. Thankfully, Cyndaquil's distraction was finally enough to allow Growlithe to scramble over the ledge of the canal, and Ash finally managed to return her. He turned, dashing up the stairs as he yelled for Cyndaquil to follow behind him.

The next day Ash re-tried training with Growlithe, and it went much better. Now that he had managed to show his own usefulness, she was now much more willing to listen to his instructions, and so he finally managed to go through all her moves and begin working on her physical fitness. In the meantime he had Cyndaquil work on his own—he could manage it, and Growlithe needed the attention.

Shortly after lunch, however, when Ash was congratulating Growlithe once more on strengthening her ember, Cyndaquil seemed to snap: he turned suddenly from the rock he had been practicing on, and attacked Growlithe in full force, hitting her with Quick Attack after Quick Attack. Ash, after trying and failing to stop Cyndaquil, began to order Growlithe to attack back—he wasn't the brightest, admittedly, and he didn't know what had caused Cyndaquil to act this way, but even he knew that simply returning him would do nothing to change his behavior; he'd had enough of that with Growlithe.

"Quick Attack back, Growlithe, then Ember!" He shouted. Growlithe faithfully did as he asked, but Cyndaquil quickly leapt out of the way and hit her with a smokescreen. "Try to bite him, Growlithe!"

Growlithe willingly jumped forward once more, and while it took a few strikes, he did manage to latch on to Cyndaquil's side, at least temporarily. Cyndaquil whimpered, but refused to stop attacking, and he was suitably stronger than Growlithe that even his lack of orders weren't enough to make victory certain.

"Um… oh!" Ash shouted. He hadn't actually memorized all of Growlithe's moves yet, having preferred to focus on the attacking ones, but if he remembered correctly… "Roar, Growlithe!"

The larger fire type did as she was told, and Cyndaquil scrambled back in stunned fear, completely abandoning the battle.

"Okay, stop!" Growlithe sat, and Ash ran forward. While he had no doubt she was just as hurt, it was Cyndaquil who more clearly needed help.

"Cyndaquil, are you okay?" The fire mouse whimpered, and turned away from Ash. He had a few gashes on his side, but none that would take longer than a quick check in at the Pokemon Center to fix. "What was that about, buddy?" Cyndaquil outright growled, and Ash flinched back in surprise.

"Cyndaquil!"

"He feels abandoned." A voice said from behind him. Ash whipped around, finding Brycen watching the scene calmly.

"What?"

"Since you caught your second Pokemon, you have been ignoring the first. He feels as if you no longer care for him, and so far you've done absolutely nothing to prove him wrong."

Ash blinked at Brycen, then turned back to Cyndaquil who was now nosing around in the dirt, still ignoring Ash.

"Is that… is that true, Buddy?" Ash asked. "I… I didn't mean to abandon you, I swear. It's just, you're _so_ strong, and _so_ loyal, I didn't need to focus on you, and Growlithe wasn't behaving, at first, so I had to focus on her all the time just to get that to change, and then when it finally did she was so much weaker than you that I…

But that was wrong, Cyndaquil. You deserve just as much attention as she does, and when she had been misbehaving you deserved even more than her. Okay?"

Cyndaquil slowly turned towards him, and then suddenly let out a squeal, scrambling into Ash's arms as he began to glow. His body turned red hot, and Ash jumped away from the sheer amount of _heat_ but still felt as if he were _burning_ , being _consumed_ , and then—

"Cyndaquil… you're a Quilava!" Ash leapt up excitedly. He grabbed the fire type who he could now barely pick up (where had the weight come from?) and hugged him excitedly. Quilava—Quilava!—trusted him, believed in him, had evolved for him!

"Very nice." Brycen said. "But now you have two Pokemon who have to be pretty intensely trained, and your next battle is in three days. Please remember—if you fail it, you will not be able to try again for six months."

Shit.

The next seventy two hours passed in a blur of attacks and defenses and Ash flipping through textbook after textbook while Growlithe practiced strengthening her flame and Quilava practiced fighting in his new body.

It was, honestly, the hardest three days Ash had ever spent. Trying to divide his attention between his two Pokemon, constantly worried about making a mistake like he had over the past week, attempting to learn anything trick he could to give them a leg up in gym battles, exercising himself, because it had quickly become clear that he needed to if he wanted to keep up with his Pokemon, waking up earlier and earlier every day, and trying and failing to find a job after Brycen made it clear he'd only give him enough money for three cheap meals a day for him and four each for his Pokemon.

But now Ash was ready.

The stadium, at least, looked the same. White floors, white walls, short racks of bleachers in the corner and a padded and insulated referee chair opposite the door. Ash hadn't spent much time reviewing the surroundings when he'd fought last time, but it was clearly in favor of the ice types—a blizzard in this room would be devastating, and act even better than a smokescreen could.

Not to mention, neither trainer nor leader was insulated in the least, and that made Ash very, very happy that he'd remembered to put on his jacket, no matter how clearly it fell below what he should be wearing.

Ash grinned. He'd noticed the environment, which he hadn't before, and he now had two Pokemon—one of which was evolved.

"I'll release first." Brycen said. Out came Delibird.

Ash's grin widened. He was _not_ the same guy he was ten days ago. That was the wonder of being as young as he was—older people took forever to change. He was better than that—he could change overnight, and no one would expect it.

He released Quilava.

Again, Delibird tried to poison Ash's Pokemon. This time it took two tries.

Again, Delibird tried to evade Ash's Pokemon using Protect and Double Team. This time it wasn't nearly as effective.

Most times, admittedly, it worked. Quilava could only move so fast, after all, and Delibird was well trained in his technique, so it was exceedingly difficult for Quilava to hit the flightless bird. But with a new, faster body, and a better fire attack, Quilava slowly, slowly pushed his advantage, and Delibird fell.

Ash nearly shouted with glee as Brycen returned his Pokemon.

"Will you be returning yours, too, or continue to battle with Quilva?"

Ash thought for a second, but Quilava had still been poisoned. No point keeping him in more pain when Growlithe may be able to take care of the second Pokemon, or at least wear them down to the point where Quilava didn't have to do as much work.

He withdrew Quilava, and released Growlithe.

And then Brycen took out his own Pokemon.

"Come on!" Ash whined. "A Cryogonal?" It may look like a giant floating snowflake, but in the time he'd spent training with Brycen, he knew one key aspect of the Pokemon which would make it hell for any fire type: under high heat, it disappeared, and _it didn't count as fainting._

Brycen didn't seem to care, and instead immediately sent his giant hexagonal monster straight after Growlithe with a Rapid Spin.

"Dodge then start biting!" Ash shouted. Growlithe faithfully followed his command, leaping to the side before whipping around to gnaw at one of Cryogonal's outcroppings, only for the ice type to float out of reach.

Again, the giant snowflake spun, and again Growlithe dodged. Again, Growlithe made to counterattack, and again Cryogonal simply moved out of the way.

Out of desperation, Ash finally cried, "Ember!" That attack, at least, had enough range that Growlithe began to hit her opponent.

Unfortunately, it also did just as Ash feared: Cryogonal began to dissipate, becoming too thinly spread for Ash to perceive as the temperature started to rise.

Then—

After Roar had ended up being so helpful in ending the battle with Cyndaquil, Ash had taken a full six hours (the most he was willing to spend, and even then he felt constantly compelled to move on) on Growlithe' and Cyndaquil's non-attack moves. The dedication, at the time, had felt far too useless to Ash (the Roar had been helpful, yes, but defeating Cyndaquil outright would have had the same effect), but now…

"Okay, Growlithe, Odor Sleuth! Sniff Cryogonal out!"

Growlithe immediately began sprinting around the arena, nosing in every direction until she suddenly stopped, growling at empty air. Ash smiled once more.

"As many embers as you can." Cryogonal may have been impossible to see, but the snowflake's condition also left it unable to attack, and now that Growlithe knew where it was?

"Congratulations, Ash. You have greatly improved." Brycen said, handing over Ash's second badge.

"Yes!" Ash shouted.

"Now, as for your apprenticeship… as you now have your badge, I assume you'll want to challenge more gyms, and with my movie's workload increasing, I am unable to help you with that. The good news is that I have found you an apprenticeship nearby, so that you may challenge the neighboring gyms easily as you continue to be trained. Your new master will meet you outside my trailer tomorrow morning, at six am.

As Ash walked away, oddly pleased about switching masters (Brycen was powerful, he knew, but he was also not a particularly attentive master, and barely spoke a few sentences to Ash since he'd stopped being one of his many assistants), he wondered who it would be.

Given that Brycen was a gym leader, Ash didn't think it was too unreasonable to believe that Brycen could be sending him to Roxie. Or—given that the area was flush with trainer schools—he might be sending him to take up an apprenticeship with Alder, given that the former Champion's prestigious school was just outside of Virbank. Or maybe he'd do a mix of both, sending Ash two towns over to Cheren's gym/trainer school combination.

Whoever Ash ended up with, he was glad he got to stay in the area. Besides the poison and normal gyms, the place just had an abundance of trainers, and with trainer battles being a great way to make money and his second badge being possibly enough to have him taken seriously, he couldn't wait to start showing every single person in the city just how good he was, regardless of his age.

Six am though… Ash hoped that waking up that early wasn't going to become something expected of him every day. He was still not quite used to waking up at dawn like Brycen did, and had been hoping that that wasn't something he'd have to keep doing until he became champion. It was odd, actually—Baoba had always woken them up early, too. It was as if no one had any idea just how awesome sleeping in was!

Ash spent the evening packing and repeatedly congratulating both Pokemon, and he even went to bed earlier than he usually did—at ten, instead of eleven—just to make sure he was up on time. He couldn't wait to meet Roxie, or Alder, or Cheren, and he wanted to make a good impression.

At six am sharp Ash found himself standing in front of Brycen's trailer with his best (and cleanest) shirt and pants, with washed and combed hair and two loyal Pokemon behind him.

Opposite him?

His new master.

The owner of Virbank Daycare Center.

* * *

If you have any questions/comments/concerns/ideas/edits, put them in a review and I'll try to answer/read/explain/incorporate/fix them.


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